The government has formed a committee to firm up proposals for a proper incentive scheme that will give bonus to the well-performing public servants.
The body was constituted following conflicting views of cabinet members and the cabinet secretary on the offer of performance bonus. The issue came up for discussion in a recent cabinet meeting.
The committee comprised special assistant to the prime minister (SAPM) on establishment (convener), cabinet secretary, Establishment Division secretary and Finance Division secretary.
It will look into the possibility of including civil servants working in the attached departments, propose a mechanism to penalise the division at the bottom in terms of performance and firm up proposals for a proper incentive system.
A quantitative assessment was proposed with 50% weightage for high impact and initiatives, and 20% weightage for other important initiatives. The remaining 30% weightage was proposed for qualitative assessment.
It was proposed that a minimum 80% completion rate would be required for any ministry to qualify for the bonus. Ministries achieving 100% completion would be given four bonuses.
For the remaining, the reward would vary from one to three bonuses, depending on the completion rate.
The SAPM on establishment floated the proposal of performance evaluation and reward through a summary.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, while agreeing with the proposal, directed the Finance Division to address certain observations and place the summary before the federal cabinet for decision.
The premier’s observations were related to the continuity of existing budget-linked honorarium, performance allowance for the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), performance bonus for civil servants in the attached departments, subordinate offices, National Assembly Secretariat, Senate Secretariat, President Secretariat and Prime Minister’s Office.
With reference to the observations, it was submitted that the existing honorarium was not a performance-based reward as it was meant to grant financial benefits to an employee for work of occasional nature beyond the normal job description.
Similarly, the FBR’s performance allowance was specifically for the achievement of revenue targets and did not include any reward for the achievement of non-revenue targets.
It may be mentioned that since these performance agreements had been signed by the ministers, therefore, civil servants working in the ministries/ divisions had been included in the performance bonus scheme.
However, it was suggested that the proposed incentive may be extended to the attached departments in the second phase of implementation.
During discussion, it was asked as to whether the bonus would be over and above the regular honoraria allowed to the ministries/ divisions.
The SAPM clarified that while the honoraria were granted to the officers for undertaking tasks outside of their regular duties, the performance bonus was aimed at rewarding the top performance in the mandated duties incorporated into their performance agreements, and the two were not linked.
A cabinet member advised to look into the entire performance evaluation system, especially the proposed bonuses, to ensure that those did not become a disincentive for the real hardworking employees and divisions.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 5th, 2022.
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