Senior civil servants will be subject to a new set of “minimum standards” next year in an update to the performance management framework.
The standards are part of a set of “amendments” to the framework set out by the Cabinet Office in its evidence to the Senior Salaries Review Body this week, which also include guidance on the “expected distribution” of high and low performers.
The changes come ahead of a more radical overhaul of performance management, which will come as part of a new SCS strategy next year.
The existing framework was set centrally by the Cabinet Office in 2022 and sets out the minimum expected process departments must follow. Departments then can build on the model to meet the needs of their own workforce.
The changes are the result of a “short review” of how consistently the framework has been adopted, according to the letter to the SSRB.
The review found that the mandatory objectives of the framework – related to finance, people including D&I, and corporate leadership – were “very vague and added little value, despite departments often setting additional guidance”.
It also found that performance outcomes and distributions varied significantly between departments. While most departments had adhered to guidance requiring them to give 5% of their senior civil servants the lowest performance rating – “partially met” – there were “great differences in how the other boxes were understood and used by departments”.
Meanwhile, it is “not clear” that a requirement to put staff who receive a “partially met” rating for two consecutive quarters onto a performance development plan has been successful in its goal to better identify poor performance.
The new minimum standards for 2025-26 will “combine and replace” the existing system, in which each senior civil servant sets their own finance; people and capability; D&I; and corporate leadership objectives. The latter objective “provides a direct link between mission-led government and performance assessment for the SCS”, according to the letter.
The standards “have been designed to set out the basic performance expectations which, bar delivery of organisational objectives, will need to be met for a member of the SCS to be deemed as performing adequately in their role”. Officials will therefore be assessed as either having “met” or “not met” each of them.
'Expected' distribution guidance 'not a return to forced distribution'
Anyone who fails to meet any of the four minimum standards will automatically be considered to be underperforming and to have “partially met” their objectives – the lowest of four categories.
The new framework will also set out which proportion of senior civil servants in each department should fall into each performance management category.
Building on the 2022 guidance that says 5% of senior civil servants should be marked as having “partially met” their performance objectives, the framework will say there is an “expectation” that 60% will be marked as having “achieved” their goals. A further 20% should be marked as “high performing” and 15% as “exceeded” – the highest possible ranking.
When the 5% “guided distribution” guidance was published in 2022, unions slammed it as “retrograde and unnecessary”. It was compared to the previous system of forced distribution, which was introduced in 2012 under then-Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude before being scrapped in 2019. The system encouraged managers to rank 25% of staff as performing well and exceeding expectations, 65% as having met them, and 10% as performing poorly and requiring improvement.
However, the Cabinet Office said in its letter that the new guide does not mark a return to forced distribution and “broadly aligns with existing practice”.
“As the SCS is a centrally managed cadre, there is strong rationale for greater consistency in the outcomes of the performance management process,” it said.
“Whilst we continue to strongly advocate against the reintroduction of forced distribution, there is merit in setting an expected distribution which departments should roughly achieve if their performance management processes were working effectively and in a way which is aligned with other departments."
It added that departments had requested guidance on the “expected shape of their performance distribution” to ensure alignment with other ministries.
The expected-distribution guidance should not be used to force line managers to amend performance-review scores to meet the set distribution, as was the case under forced distribution, the letter says.
Instead, the guidance should only be used during meetings at local and departmental level to ensure consistency after performance management conversations between members of the SCS and their line manager have concluded.
It should be used to ensure consistent standards are being applied across the SCS and to make alterations to the process for the coming year “if the distribution is not in line with expectations without good reason”.
'Shifting focus' from line managers to departmental reporting
Under next year’s changes, departments will be required to report more formally and regularly –internally, to each other and to the Cabinet Office – on the number and percentage of their senior civil servants who are performing poorly.
The Cabinet Office's Government People Group will then formalise an annual data commission to identify the number of poor performers in each department.
The guidance also includes more requirements for senior leaders to discuss the department’s approach to poor performance at start and end-of-year meetings and for HR directors to present this information to GPG.
"We are clear that the effective and timely identification and management of poor performance, particularly amongst the SCS, is crucial to driving mission-led government, yet there remains an issue with poor performance being consistently identified across the civil service," the letter says.
"Nevertheless, we recognise that previous attempts to increase the monitoring of poor performance has not been successful in raising performance, but only added additional bureaucracy to the performance process. As such, we are shifting the focus from placing additional surveillance requirements on line managers, to departmental reporting."
The updated framework will also included “clearer expectations for ‘how’ the SCS should deliver their work, to ensure that these expectations better align with government priorities for the management of the civil service, and mission-led government”.
“This should ensure that members of the SCS are better incentivised to work in a way which compliments the emerging government priorities in this area,” the letter says.