Speaking to The Indian Express, Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar said there were “inherent shortcomings” in the existing numerical system of annual appraisal for members of the Indian Administrative Service.

“We introduced the numerical system about two years ago but find that a 10/10 rating is being frequently given to officers who are in Ministries or Departments whose performance may be 3 or 4 (on a scale of 10),” he pointed out. “Besides, since senior officers writing the ACRs are now required to show the rating to the officer being appraised, they give them high grades leading to this mismatch between performance of individual officers and the department as a whole.”

For months now, experts from the National Academy of Administration, the IIMs and the Cabinet Secretariat have been working on the new appraisal format to evolve a more “scientific formula” for rating the performance of Ministries and Departments. The idea is for departmental ratings to be in before the season for filling in ACRs so that the present mismatch with individual performances converges to a better match.

Appraisal mechanisms of countries such as USA, Canada, New Zealand, Malaysia and Kenya have been examined and the blueprint for reform picked from the 10th report of the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC).

Its chapter on “Performance Management” proposed that a performance agreement be signed between the departmental Minister and the Secretary of the Ministry every financial year. The ARC has envisaged that the agreement lists all “physical and verifiable details” work done by the Secretary/ Head of Department which is also assessed by a third party, say, the Central Public Services Authority.

A draft performance agreement has now been prepared and workshops conducted by the Cabinet Secretariat with officials of the Ministries of Commerce, Labour, Tourism and Heavy Industry.

Prajapati Trivedi, Secretary (Performance Management) in the Cabinet Secretariat, is the nodal officer for the implementation of the performance rating and appraisal schemes.

“We want to introduce the Performance Agreement in two phases, with the first phase covering Ministries and Departments which deal with the service sector,” said Trivedi. “We are setting up a machine that will work with any Government and with any sort of agenda. We hope the performance ratings of Departments integrated with those of individual officers will become a model for the private sector as well.”