Civil Service: Performance Management Plans

8. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of performance management plans in the civil service.

Departments are responsible for setting their own performance plans, subject to centrally set performance management frameworks. This Government are focused on a high-performing civil service, which is why we have recently announced changes to the senior civil service performance system that will see the performance of top civil servants linked to key performance indicators set by their Ministers, and underperformers held to tougher standards.

Our constituents must interact with many Government agencies each week to renew their passport or driving licence or to submit their tax returns. Despite record numbers of bureaucrats, productivity remains low, which results in many errors and vast delays for our constituents. The answers to my written parliamentary questions confirm that there is no proper performance management of our civil servants, corrective action or even dismissals for continued poor performance. Without the usual platitudes about how hard civil servants work, I want to know what the Government are doing about the thousands of poorly performing civil servants who are costing our constituents millions of pounds each year.

I think it is ironic that Opposition Members complain about civil servants but did nothing when they were in power. Instead, this Government are updating the performance management framework, incentivising those who deliver and tackling underperformance as soon as it arises. To do this, we are changing the rules to ensure a closer, more effective link between pay and performance, with larger awards for the highest performers, and strengthening the minimum standards so that those who fail to manage the performance of their teams are quickly identified.