The prime minister has warned government officials that the government will no longer put up with babus shirking work under the cover of protocol and processes. As an enabler, he has suggested that the departments be given operating autonomy. A new, 16-page circular from the cabinet secretariat asks the bureaucrats across levels to pull up their socks and deliver, instead of pushing files from table to table.

The prime minister has been backing a performance monitoring and evaluation system (PMES) since 2009 which reviews a department’s performance over a financial year.

The circular details a result framework document each department is supposed to prepare giving a summary of the goals it expects to achieve during a financial year. The document, the circular notes, will help the government make objective and fair assessment of the department’s overall performance. All departments have to submit their RFDs by March 5 this year.

After six months, the targets in the RFDs will be compared with the actual achievements and reset, if necessary. Changes in priorities of the department and unforeseen circumstances will be considered in the mid-year appraisal.

At the end of the year, the reviewed targets and the work done will be tallied. The offices will submit the evaluation report to their respective ministries by on May 1, 2013. Each department will also have to put up the report on their websites for public scrutiny.

Officials said the beauty of RFDs is that they not only contain mutually-agreed objectives, policies, programmes and projects, but also include success indicators to measure progress in implementing them. To ensure the achievement of the targets, the prime minister has advised that the government offices should have the necessary operational autonomy.

The RFDs reflect three basic questions:

— What are organisation’s main objectives for the year?

— What actions are proposed to achieve these objectives? 

— How would someone check the degree of progress made in implementation at the end of the year?

As such, it is divided into five sections — the organisation's long-term vision, objectives and functions, inter se priorities among key objectives, success indicators and targets, detailed definition of the success indicators and methodology for their measurement, and specific performance required from other organisations that is critical for delivering the results.

The vision is a long-term generic and grand statement that does not change from year to year unless the organisation is dramatically restructured and is expected to undertake very different tasks in the future.

The circular says the vision should never carry the 'how' part of vision. For example 'To be the most admired brand in Aviation Industry' is a fine vision statement, which can be spoiled by extending it to 'To be the most admired brand in the Aviation Industry by providing world-class in-flight services.' The reason for not including 'how' is that it may keep on changing with time, states the circular.

It points out the necessity of making the employees adopt the vision with sincerity. "Many a time, terms like vision, mission and strategy become more a subject of scorn than being looked up-to. This is primarily because leaders may not be able to make a connection between the vision/mission and every day work. Too often, employees see a gap between the vision, mission and their goals and priorities. Even if there is a valid/tactical reason for this mismatch, it is not explained."

The circular says that the leadership of the organisation "should consult a wide cross section and come up with a vision that can be owned by the employees of the organisation."  It also notes that the vision should have a time span of 5-10 years —iIf less, it becomes tactical and, if it is for 20+ years, it becomes difficult for the strategy to relate to the vision.

It also lays down that the RFD must specify one or more success indicators or key performance indicators and cover both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the organisation to enable evaluation of progress of the policies, programmes, schemes and projects.

"Sometimes more than one success indicator may be required to tell the entire story. Success indicators are important management tools for driving improvements in organisation performance. They should represent the main business of the organization and should also aid accountability. If there are multiple actions associated with an objective, the weight assigned to a particular objective should be spread across the relevant success indicators," the circular added.