an overview of performance appraisal

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AN OVERVIEW OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

1. Reviewing people’s performance is one of the management activities throughwhich the performance of the whole organisation is managed. Monitoring the

performance of an organisation is a vital process since it is only through therealization of at least an adequate performance that the organisation willachieve its objectives and continue to survive and develop. In fact, monitoringis part of a larger process that gathers information about performance. Byimplication, it should be assumed that an analysis of the information carrieswith it recommendations for specific actions that are designed to correct or improve situations where necessary.

2. Ultimately, the level and quality of an organisation’s performance isdetermined by the levels and standards that are achieved by its employees.The argument that external pressures have a strong influence on an

organisation’s performance is a rational one, but the delivery of a goodperformance by employees must enhance the organisation’s chance of survival even under the most dire conditions. Putting it negatively, poor performance by the employees could cause major problems for the enterpriseregardless of the external conditions. It is therefore crucial to have the meansto assess employees’ performance formally and to have a system of follow-updesigned to solve any problems that might be inhibiting good performance.

3. Performance appraisal

4. There are several approaches to appraising employees’ performance, but the

most frequent one – and it is the one employed in the Romanian civil service -involves a manager in carrying out an annual appraisal of his or her staff. Inthis well-used system the manager completes an appraisal form and theemployee (usually) completes a shorter note about duties, objectives andresponsibilities. An interview then takes place at which the manager and theemployee reach agreement over the extent to which the employee hasreached the standards of the job and achieved any objectives set at theprevious review, or since. Any problems that might have arisen since theprevious review are also discussed, the reasons ascertained and decisionsmade about solutions.

5. All of this has a past focus. While this is important, it is also essential for themanager to emphasise what is to happen in the future. The identification of problems, for example, gives the manager the opportunity to discusssolutions which, of course, can only be applied in the future. It might be thatcoaching or counselling are the solutions to the employee’s problems, but itmight also involve further training. Whatever type of solution is discussed,agreement should be reached about the employee’s future job objectives andfuture standards of performance in the job.

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6. Some time before the interview, the employee is normally given a self-preparation form. At this stage he or she will have been informed about thetime and place of the interview. The structure of the form gives the employeea measured way of considering his or her performance over the past year.

The form also provides the employee with implicit guidance about how heshould be thinking in relation to the appraisal.

7. From his or her monitoring of day to day performance, the manager shouldhave a good idea of how each employee is performing. He or she will havehandled any grievances that have arisen. The manager should also be awareof any difficulties that have arisen for reasons beyond the employee’s control.This includes an personality difficulties that have arisen within the group inwhich the employee works.

8. Managing performance can be formal or informal. The informal approach is

characterised by more or less continuous monitoring and feedback. The mainproblem with it is that it does not allow the perspective of time. Things, bydefinition, are dealt with ad hoc. The judgements reached can be verysubjective – always a bad thing.

9. Here, we are concerned with formal appraisal, normally carried out annually,as part of a specially designed system that includes coaching, counsellingand training as possible follow up action. It is worth emphasizing that thesystem should be flexible and capable of being adapted to changedcircumstances, and the system itself should be subject to monitoring.Performance appraisal is often criticized for being one of the things that looks

good on paper, but seldom works effectively in practice. However, it is failureto monitor the system and to adapt it to changed circumstances that causesperformance appraisal to fall into disrepute within an organisation.

10.The objectives of appraisal

11.The purpose of appraisal is to raise the likelihood that an organisation willachieve its strategic goals and specific objectives through its staff performingwell and within the set policies and systems. In addition to this organisationwide objective performance appraisal also has more specific objectives.

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Assessing past performance and the extent to which objectives have beenmet.

• Identifying training needs and planning to meet them.

• Setting and agreeing future standards and objectives.

• Providing increased motivation to the employee.

12.Performance appraisal is entirely about how the employee has performed inhis or her job and nowhere else. Performance appraisal is not about how the

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employee has conducted himself or herself outside of the job. Nor is it abouthow well they have organised social functions. For many jobs, and certainlyfor non-management jobs, it is not about the personality of the individual. Theorganisation should have different procedures in place to deal with thesematters. The assessment criteria on the performance appraisal form should

therefore be related directly to job performance and to the particular jobspecification. Managers should base their markings on an objectiveassessment of how the various criteria have been fulfilled during the appraisalperiod

The objectives of performanceappraisal

Objective Related action and decisions

Assessing past performance The appraisal form containsassessment scales on which a level of past performance is recorded. Themarking reflects the degree to whichthe individual has met the requiredstandards and achieved objectives setat the previous review.

Identifying the training needs of theindividual

It might be that shortfalls that are foundin the individual’s performance indicatea need for training (to fill in gaps in

knowledge or skills) or counselling (tomotivate the individual toward animproved effort). At the interview theemployee and the manager shouldwork out a training and counsellingprogramme.

13.The appraisal interview

14.The appraisal interview is dealt with extensively in a later section of thisguide. The material here is a brief and general overview.

15.If the appraisal interview is to be successful particular attention should bepaid to the venue. It should beheld at a place and at a time when both partiescan be certain that they will not be disturbed. Telephones should be switchedoff or be diverted. The room should be quiet and comfortable, and should bereserved well in advance.

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16.The manager should attribute importance to the occasion and should be seento do so. To the employee the interview will be an important event in theannual calendar. Employees talk to one another about it. They ensure thatthey complete their part of the documentation in advance and the manager

should have plenty of time to read it and to analyse it beforehand. Oftenemployees will make special efforts with their appearance and presentation atthe interview. They can be totally disillusioned if, at the interview, themanager simply seems hell-bent on getting the forms completed and either talks over them or does not listen carefully.

17.Appraisal interviews have considerable potential for maintaining andenhancing good human relations and managers should regard them asimportant events. They should be properly planned. All the relevantdocumentation should be to hand and should have been properly studied.Background information should have been entered on the form before the

interviews starts, thus heading off the need for notes to be taken. At the endof the interview the employee should leave the room with the following.

• A well founded belief that the manager is aware of his or her total job situationand that there was mutual understanding of the importance of the appraisalinterview.

• Clear knowledge of exactly what lies ahead in terms of the standards of jobperformance expected and the objectives to be achieved. The standards andthe objectives should have been mutually agreed. They should be a stretchfor the employee, but they should be achievable. The objectives should havespecific performance standards attached to them.

•An understanding that specific arrangements will be made to fill in any gaps inknowledge or skills that were identified.

• A general feeling that the perceptions, decisions and action were fair andreasonable.

• Motivation to perform well in the future.

18.The above represents a set of ideal attainments. But they do provide anassessor with a set of goals to aim for, even if the employee is difficult.

19.The degree to which an appraisal interview is successful and its outcomedepends upon several factors.

• The personality and skill of the manager.

• The personality of the employee and his or her conduct during the interview.

• The situation of the interview.

• The nature of the content that has to be discussed.

20.Managers often experience difficulty when faced with the prospect of tellingsomebody that their performance is below standard. Many question their right

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to be judge and jury, making decisions that can have a serious effect on the job future of other people. One answer to this is to adopt a different approach.Instead of sitting back and acting as a judge, pointing out weaknesses anddeficiencies, the manager takes up the role of coach and counselor. Heapproaches the problem as a change agent, a person who is willing to help

employees and to show them how to improve performance. In this way, theappraised employee becomes and active agent and not simply a passiveobject. The interview can then be seen as a part of an ongoing, progressivemovement in which the manager and the employee are working together towards improvement. It is a process that might involve the manager incoaching or recommending further training for the employee and it might alsoinvolve the manager in using counselling techniques. There are three mainapproaches to this kind of counselling.

• The tell and sell method. Here the manager seeks first to let the employeeknow how he is doing, then to gain the employee’s acceptance of the

evaluation and, finally, to get him or her to follow the plan outlined for improvement. The problem with this method is that considerable and unusualskill is required to get people to accept criticism and to change in the requiredmanner. There occasions when it is necessary to tell people unpleasant facts,but it might not be possible to provide the motivation required for change,unless resort is made to threats (almost invariably a bad tactic) or inducements.

• The tell and listen method. The evaluation is given to the employee, who isthen allowed to respond to it. Instead of the interviewer dominating thediscussion, he or she sits back and becomes anon-directive counselor in the

second part of the discussion. The employee is encouraged to think thingsout for himself or herself and to decide on what needs to be done. Theassumption is that he or she is more likely to change in these circumstancesthan if he or she had simply been told what to do. A further advantage of thisapproach is that the interviewer will profit more from the interview by receivingfeedback from the employee on how the job might be improved regardingsupervision, work methods and job assignments. But the method requiresconsiderable skill on the part of the interviewer in listening, reflecting feelingsand summarizing opinions.

• The problem solving approach. Here the interviewer abandons the role of

judge and becomes a helper. The appraisal is not communicated directly tothe employee. Instead, a discussion takes place of the work problems of theemployee, who is encouraged to think through his or her solutions to them,including changes needed to behaviour to achieve improvement. Thisapproach motivates original thinking because it stimulates curiosity. It alsoprovides the intrinsic motivation that can be derived from work itself and theprocess of tackling work problems. Job satisfaction can be improved byrecognizing or enlarging the job (though this is not an exclusive characteristic

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of this process). The superior’s ability to provide advice and guidance isincreased, as is his or her ability to provide help in the form that it is needed.This approach also needs skill, but it is probably the most fruitful method andit is one that can be clearly linked to results oriented review techniques.

21.Following appraisal interviews, managers should ensure that all the agreedaction to provide training and/or counseling are followed up. It has beenknown for this crucial activity to be missed. Managers conduct very goodinterviews, but then fail to follow through. Appraisal without effective follow-upis almost a complete waste of time. The information gathered at an appraisalinterview should be entered on the relevant forms and copied to theappraiser’s supervisor and to the personnel department for action.

Ramboll ManagementPhare Project Thursday, May 27, 2004

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GENERAL PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL PROCEDURES

1. Introduction

2. An omnibus statement of the law currently applicable to performanceappraisal forms an appendix to this section of the guide.

3. Law 188/89, article 58 determines that appraisal is (usually) to be performedannually and that it is to result in an overall performance assessment that is tobe graded as one of, ‘excellent’, ‘very good’, ‘good’, ’satisfactory’ or ‘unsatisfactory’. A second inclusion links appraisal to promotion both for paypurposes and generally and also provides for dismissal in the case of unsatisfactory ratings. The article makes provision for the setting up of an

assessment commission to deal with the performance appraisal of highranking civil servants and concludes by giving regulatory powers for setting adetailed methodology for the conduct of performance appraisal generally.

4. The regulatory power has been exercised in the Government Decision1209/2003, ‘Regarding the Organisation and Development of the CivilServant’s Career’. This lengthy decision covers recruitment and selection andsome other matters as well as performance appraisal in general terms and asit is applied to high ranking civil servants, at one extreme, and to debutantcivil servants, at the other. This section of the guide deals specifically withappraisal for civil servants generally and for high ranking civil servants. A later

section deals with the arrangements for probationary civil servants.

5. Ministry of Public Administration Order Number 8, 15th January 2002,provides information about the performance criteria to be used withinperformance appraisal reports. It deals separately with operational(execution) civil servant and leading civil servants, though the performancecriteria to be applied to the latter also include the performance criteria to beapplied to the former.

6. The preamble section to the guide has given general information about theprinciples of performance appraisal. That is not repeated here. The generalapproach of this section is to consider the general character of performanceappraisal as it is set out in article 58 of Law 188/99 and then to consider indetail, broadly in the order in which they appear, the detailed provisions of theGovernment Decision.

7. The terminology used in this section of the guide is as follows.

• The civil servant means the civil servant subject to performance appraisal.

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• The evaluator means the person making the performance appraisal.

• The second signatory means the person senior to the evaluator whocounter-signs the appraisal report.

8. The character of article 50 of Law 188/99

9. The substantive law provides that appraisal is to be done on an annual basis.In some circumstance this is not practicable. The civil servant might onlyspend part of the year in post or the evaluator might change after only part of the year in post. These circumstances are met by specific provisions withinthe Government Decision and it follows that, in some circumstances,appraisal reports will be for shorter periods than for one year.

10.The function of the appraisal report is narrowly defined by article 58. It listsonly four functions of the appraisal.

• Promotion to higher pay ranks.• Promotion on the pay scale

• Promotion to a higher public position.

• Dismissal from a public position.

11.This list of functions is too narrow. For instance, it excludes the basic purposeof performance appraisal which it to enable the organisation to reach a viewon how well its employee’s are functioning in relation to the strategic andother objectives that it has set. Nor does it cover issues such as uncoveringneeds for further training or education: that does, however, form part of theGovernment Decision and is dealt with later. It should be taken as an implicit

function of performance appraisal that it is concerned in major part with theassessment of competence in relation to duties and, thence, that it isconcerned in aggregate with how well the employee’s of the public authorityor institution are meeting the organisation’s strategic and other objectives. Aswill be seen from what follows, the appraisal is directly concerned, insignificant part, with how well the civil servant has performed in relation towork objectives set for him or her in the previous performance appraisalreport, or set out in an addendum to it.

12.Dismissal can be a consequence of unsatisfactory performance in terms of the final grade given in a performance appraisal report. The extension to

article 58 of Law 188/99 is in article 90(4)(d). That provision reads as follows.

• The head of the public authority or institution shall dispose the releasefrom the public function by an administrative act that shall becommunicated to the civil servant no later than five days after theissuance for reasons not imputable to the civil servant in the followingcases…………(d) for professional incompetence where he or she gets the

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qualification ‘unsatisfactory’ in the assessment of the individualprofessional performance.

13.There is a logical gap in the law to the extent that neither in Law 188/99 or inthe Government Decision is it stated that mitigating circumstances have to be

taken into account before a decision is made to give a rating of unsatisfactory.However, within the evaluation form (dealt with later) there is space to allowthe evaluator to comment upon ‘objective difficulties encountered [by the civilservant] during the evaluation period’. Mitigating factors should be expressedin that section. It would also be open to the second signatory to commentupon or extend these mitigating factors in his or her comments on the report.This carries a clear, practical point. The appraisal report is to be doneobjectively. That is to say, it is to measure objectively the standards obtainedin relation to the objectives set and in relation to the aspects of individualperformance (see later) that are relevant. Only in the sections already notedare mitigating circumstances to be brought to attention. The extent to which

any such mitigating factors are to be taken into account by the head of thepublic authority or institution in determining the administrative action of dismissal is a separate matter outside the scope of this guide, but generalprinciples of natural justice would presumably apply.

14.Arrangement for promotion either in pay or in other terms are to bedetermined on the basis of the final grade given in the appraisal report. Theadministrative procedures governing these arrangements are outside theprovisions of this guide.

15.The Government Decision – Annex 3 Methodology for the evaluation of

the professional performance of civil servants

16.General applicability

17. Article 1(1) of the Government Decision establishes that performanceappraisal is to be applied to every civil servant, without exceptions. The onlyderogation to this provision occurs in article 3(4) where it is provided that thecivil servant must have worked for at least 6 months in a public position inorder to be evaluated. Separate provisions (see below) also provide for ‘out of normal course’ appraisals where there is a disruption in the service of theevaluator.

18.The job description

19.Article 1(2) refers to the job description with the implicit meaning that the jobdescription (together with specified work objectives) forms a basic referencepoint for the evaluation process. A job description model form is included asthe first of the forms provided as a sub-annex to this section of theGovernment Decision.

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20.The job description should have been established on appointment of the civilservant to the post, though it might since have been updated. The jobdescription requires the approval of the head of the public authority or institution. It contains the following.

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The name of the job.

• The level of the job – the public position according to category.

• Identification of the public position – name, class, professional degree.

• The main purpose of the job – the necessity for the job and thecontribution to the public authority or institution.

• Requirements for holding the job – specialised training, advanced training,computer user/programming, foreign languages (with level of knowledge),abilities, qualities and aptitudes. managerial competence, specificrequirements (frequent traveling, delegations, secondment).

• Responsibilities – established on the basis of Law 188/99 regarding thestatus of civil servants. The degree of complexity and difficulty is to growgradually with every class and rank within the same category.

• Competence limits – the decision making freedom of the post-holder.

• Delegation of responsibilities.

• Relationships

o Internal – hierarchic, functional, control, representation.

o External – with public authorities and institutions, with international

organisations, with private legal persons.

• Drawn up by – head of department where the official works

• Notified to the job holder – name, signature and date.

• Endorsed by – name, executive public office, signature and date.

21.The general basis of appraisal

22.Article 2 of the Government Decision sets the general basis for the appraisal.The evaluation is to be done by reference to the performance standardsachieved and the degree of fulfillment of the tasks set for the evaluatedperiod. This article is extended by article 6. There it is made clear that theappraisal is to cover the extent to which specific goals that were set were

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achieved and to deal with performance standards for individual aspects of performance. The provisions of article 6 are dealt with in more detail later.

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23.The evaluation period

24.Article 3(1) and 3(2) defines the normal evaluation period and indicates theperiod available for completion of the evaluation. The process is not definedand must therefore be interpreted in its ordinary language. Therefore theperiod should be taken to mean the completion of all normal action in relationto an evaluation. Thus, it includes not only the writing of the evaluation report,but the carrying out of the appraisal interview (see separate section of thisguide) and action by the second signatory. Appeal action should not beconsidered a normal part of the appraisal process and therefore the timeprescribed and taken for that action should lie outside of the appraisal period,to the extent necessary.

• The prescribed period to which the appraisal is to apply is from 1 st

December of one year to 30th November of the next year.

• Appraisal action is to be completed between 1st December and 15th

December of the month following the end of the appraisal period.

25.Exceptional evaluation periods

26.Article 3(3) and 3(4) of the Government Decision set out further provisionsregarding appraisal periods.

27.The first extension relates to situations in which the civil servant’semployment ceases, changes or is suspended during an evaluation period. Inthose events, the civil servant is evaluated for the period up to the cessation,

change or suspension. No minimum period is stated for the period of suspension that is to trigger completion of an appraisal report. Suspensionshould therefore be taken to mean situations in which the application of articles 87,88 and 89 of Law 188/99 are applicable. It should be noted that theminimum 6 month appraisal period normally applied is specifically excludedfrom application where employment ceases changes or is suspended (Article3(4)). The formal situation is therefore that appraisal procedures are triggeredwhenever cessation, change or suspension takes place.

28.The second extension regarding appraisal periods arises when a civil servantwho would normally act as an evaluator ceases, changes or suspends his or

her employment. In that event appraisal action is triggered and should betaken within 15 days of the cessation, change or suspension. The appraisal issubject to the normal rules. The grade given in such an interim evaluation isto be taken into account in the annual evaluation when that is completed.

29.The third alteration to the appraisal period occurs when a civil servant ispromoted to a higher category because of obtaining a higher diploma. In thatcase, appraisal action is triggered at the point the promotion is made.

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30.Article 3(4), subject to the exceptions listed in the previous three paragraphs,places a time floor to appraisal action. It provides that for evaluation to becarried out on the basis of a fully annual appraisal, the civil servant must haveworked for at least 6 months in a public position. The effect of this paragraphis that for normal appraisal to take place, the civil servant must have been

continuously in post from 1st

June to 30th

November in the year to whichappraisal is applied.

31.The evaluator

32.Article 4(1)places a duty upon the evaluator to carry out a performanceappraisal. Paragraph 4(2) then goes on to define who the evaluator shouldbe. Its effect is as follows.

• The evaluator will normally be the leading civil servant who coordinatesthe department in which the civil servant carries out his or her work, or who coordinates his or her activity. Thus there are two definitions. The first

related to coordination of the department and the second to coordinationof the activity. If separate persons carry out these functions, it is a matter for administrative decision which should make the appraisal. The law doesnot specify any competence for the evaluator apart from position. Nor isany particular training or experience specified.

• Where the civil servant to be appraised is a leading civil servant, theevaluator should be the hierarchically superior civil servant in terms of theorganisational structure.

• Where the civil servant to be evaluated works in a department which is not

coordinated by a leading civil servant, or they carry out their activity under the coordination of a dignitary, the evaluator is to be a high civil servant.

• Where the civil servant is the secretary of a commune, town or territorial-administrative sub-division of a municipality, the evaluator is to be themayor, but subject to a proposal of the local council.

33.Steps in appraisal

34.Article 5 of the Government Decision sets out three main stages for performance appraisal. These are the following.

• The making of the appraisal report by the evaluator.

• The appraisal interview, which is dealt with in a separate section of thisguide.

• Countersigning of the appraisal report.

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35.Responsibilities of the evaluator

36.Article 6 lists the general responsibilities of the evaluator in relation to theappraisal report. These responsibilities are made more specific in later articles, particularly in article 7 regarding goals, article 8 regardingperformance standards and article 9 regarding the final grading of theperformance appraisal.

37.The main responsibilities of the evaluator are as follows.

• The analysis of how individual goals were fulfilled. The goals here arethose listed in the previous appraisal report as these might have beenamended or extended during the course of the evaluation period.Procedures exist for the revision of goals on a quarterly basis.

• Appraising general performance standards. These are specificperformance standards linked to the job description as it applied duringthe appraisal period. In the appendix to this guide there are tables of evaluation criteria. These tables have been produced on the basis of generic material regarding the elements of performance standards. Theappendix is preceded by a note setting out how the evaluation criteriamight be used in relation to performance appraisal (and to the preparationof job descriptions). Broadly, there is a four-column tabulation, eachcolumn relating to a different grade of civil servant, ranked in ascendingorder from left to right. The descriptions provided for each of the differentcomponents of work represent what a competent civil servant, within the

specified grade span, should achieve. Thus they accord to the ‘good’ levelof achievement. The evaluation criteria should be used as a general guideto performance in relation to the aspects of work dealt with. The material isin three main parts – a general set of performance criteria; a set related tolawyers working in the civil service; a set related to staff working infinance. There are, of course, many other types of civil servant that couldbe covered. This is, however, a matter for the individual public authoritiesand institutions.

• Determining the final grade for the performance appraisal. This is dealtwith further in article 8 – see following.

• Noting in narrative form information concerning the following.

o Any outstanding results achieved by the civil servant during the

appraisal period. ‘Outstanding’ is not a term defined by theGovernment Decision, but it can be taken to equate to ‘exceptional’,that is to say to a rating of 5 on the five-point scale used for evaluation. It is performance very significantly above the average

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level and is really sustained performance without flaw of any kind or degree.

o Any objective difficulties encountered by the civil servant during the

appraisal period. This term is not defined by the Government

Decision. At a minimum, it should be taken to mean issues thathave had an observable, significant, adverse effect on performanceor on any particular part of it. The reason for the adverse effectmust be precise and it must be specifically attached to theparticular civil servant, though other civil servants too might havebeen affected by it.

o Any other observations considered relevant. This is a catch-all

provision. It should normally be used to elucidate, as seemsnecessary, point or markings made in other parts of the appraisalreport. Particularly it should be used to point out any unevenness inperformance. For example, while written work as a whole mighthave been good, parts of it might have been unsatisfactory, or, per contra, exceptionally good. Similarly, relations with colleaguesmight have been generally satisfactory, but unsatisfactory inparticular respects.

• Sets individual performance goals and deadlines for the next period to beevaluated. This matter is dealt with in more detail in article 7, which iscovered below.

• Sets training needs for the next evaluation period. No further information isgiven about this within the Government Decision. Clearly training can be

of two fundamental kinds. It can be remedial training – directed towardmaking good specific deficiencies observed in performance. Alternatively,or in addition, it can be training to fit the civil servant for the demands of new goals or new types of work within the overall scope of the jobdescription. Nor does the Government Decision contain further informationabout the type of training to be provided. At one end of the spectrum, itcould be formal courses, seminars or further education. At the other end itcould merely involve desk-training from more experienced colleagues.Clearly there is too a practical constraint: it will only be appropriate toenter as training to be provided training that there is reasonable certaintyof providing. Unless this is the case, the inclusion of the material on the

form is irrelevant and it should not be entered. In turn, this might meanthat goals have to be curtailed or re-expressed, or that work planned for the civil servant might have to be accomplished by others.

38.A model of the report form to be used for the performance appraisal isincluded as a sub-appendix to the Government Decision and is reproduced atthe end of this section of the guide.

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39.Performance goals

40.Article 7 of the Government Decision deals with performance goals, in terms

of the goals to be established for the next appraisal period. However,information about the appraisal of performance related to goals is implicit inthis article. The article, as a whole, can therefore be taken as having focuseson the forward period – goal setting – and on the completed period – goalperformance appraisal.

41.The first point made by article 7 is that goals that are set must fall within theambit of the job description of the civil servant. Goal setting is not a covertmeans of extending that job description.

42.The detailed material in article 7 covers these points in order. It should be

noted, however, that article 7 places no limit on the number of goals that canbe set. The model form suggests space for 5 goals, but this is not anabsolute. There might be fewer or, perhaps more rarely, more. The number of goals, and their expression, is a matter for administrative decision, alwaysbearing in mind that they are constrained by the job description.

• The individual goal must be specific to activities that involve theprerogatives of a public power. This is rather technical phraseology. Itshould be taken to mean that goals that would involve the civil servant inactivity that is beyond the scope of a normal civil service power has to beset aside. It would be ultra vires This is, of course, a general restriction on

civil service activity. It should therefore be considered as a provision ‘for the avoidance of doubt’.

• The goal must be quantifiable; and the provision underlines this by goingon to say that it must have a concrete character. On the strict face of thearticle then the goal must have a numerical value attached to it in terms of its fulfillment. A quantifiable element does not, of course, preclude aqualitative element to the goal, nor should it. It merely sets a condition.Thus, for example, casework might explicitly have to be done to agenerally good level. The goal might be expressed as, ‘the completion of X cases in Y period to a good standard’. Another, less defined example

might be, ‘achieve (defined) secondary legislation in not more than Xiterations by a specified date’. The evaluator should be aware that, bycareful expression of the goal, it is always possible to attach a quantifier,and this should be done.

• The goal should have deadlines. The deadlines should be, of course,within or by the end of the forward appraisal period. This might requiresome ingenuity in phrasing by the evaluator. It will, perhaps often, be the

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case that a goal remains in force from one appraisal period to another. Inthis case intermediate deadlines should be set, with consequentimplications for the general phrasing of the goal. A common example willbe casework of different kinds which will remain part of the civil servantsduties from appraisal period to appraisal period. As indicated earlier, the

appropriate goal will be of the general form, ‘casework of Z type involvingnot less than X cases in Y period (weekly, monthly, quarterly) of a goodstandard’. General considerative work should have intermediate and finalgoals attached to it. Project work, by definition, will have deadlines for intermediate work products set by the project timelines. These should beincorporated, as appropriate, into the appraisal goals for the individual civilservant at an appropriate level of aggregation.

• The goal should be realistic, in terms of being capable of being fulfilledwithin the deadlines set and with the resources being made available for it.Neither the specific wording of the Government Decision nor the wording

of the appraisal report form set a requirement that resource expenditure(staff, capital and revenue) should be attached to goals. But it is obviouslygood management practice that they should. Indeed in manyadministrations, and it might already be the case in parts of the Romanianpublic service, it standard practice for all work to be controlled by tasksheets. These task sheets, which are in some measure the parallelequivalent of job descriptions for an individual, set out the work to be doneand the resources of different types, including man-days or man-months,to be expended in achieving it. The task sheets are normally updated atleast annually and often quarterly or six-monthly.

• The goal should be flexible to the extent of being capable of being revisedaccording to the changing priorities of the public authority or institution.The Decision does not state specifically at this point that the prioritiesmust also chime with the job description of the civil servant, but that isexplicit elsewhere. Article 7(3) of the Government Decision sates thatgoals can be revised on a quarterly basis. In that event, the evaluator andthe civil servant each sign and date a document setting out the revisedgoal(s). That document is then attached to the last appraisal report andforms part of the input material for the next appraisal report.

43.Stages to reach the final evaluation grade

44.This is dealt with in article 8 and article 9 of the Government Decision. Thebasic mechanism is the following.

• Performance in relation to each goal is assessed on a rising scale of from1 to 5. Formally, no narrative description is attached by the GovernmentDecision to each mark. However, there is a broad parallel in thedescriptions attached to the final grade of the appraisal. These, inascending order, are – ‘unsatisfactory’, ‘satisfactory’, ‘good’, ‘very good’

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and ‘exceptional’. The integer marking should be taken to mean thatwording. But it should be noted that there is no definition of the wordingeither in the Government Decision or on the face of the model report form.The following is therefore administrative guidance. At this point it relates tothe appraisal of work done in relation to particular goals. Later on, it is

generalized.

o Unsatisfactory (mark 1) should be taken to mean clearly below the

standard to be expected from a fully trained civil servant occupying theparticular post. The work should be consistently below standard. If there are mitigating factors, these can be drawn attention to in thenarrative part of the appraisal form and, as will later be seen, the civilservant also has the opportunity to enter on to the form mitigatingcircumstances in the section for his or her use.

o Satisfactory (mark 2) should be taken to mean the general standard to

be expected from a fully trained civil servant occupying the particular post. There might well have been some aspects of performance thatwere unsatisfactory and some that were rated above mark 2, but thegeneral standard has been mark 2. The comments box on the formcan be used to detail (and if necessary explain) any variation. It shouldbe carefully noted that mark 2 should be taken as the average level of attainment by civil servants. The mark is precisely a satisfactory levelof attainment. If the performance appraisal system is working correctlyit should be the mark obtained by the majority of civil servants.

o Good (mark 3) should be taken to mean the standard distinctly above

the mark 2 satisfactory standard achieved by a fully trained civilservant occupying the particular post. The work should be consistentlyabove the mark 2 standard, but some inconsistency of performance (toa lower standard) might have been observed. In general, though, therewill have been no consistently sustained high points of performance.

o Very good (mark 2) should be taken to mean performance consistently

and significantly above a performance by a fully trained civil servantoccupying the particular post and which would have been marked good(mark 3). The essence of this mark is consistent high achievement.There should have been no inconsistencies in performance.

o Exceptional (mark 1) should be taken to mean performance that, takingaccount on the training and experience of the civil servant occupyingthe particular post, was truly exceptional. It should very considerablyexceed expectations on all parameters. The mark should only be givenrarely and never lightly or without very clear justification. In mostadministrations, marks of this order are achieved by no more than 2 or 3% of civil servants and then usually only on parts of an appraisal.

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• When each goal has been marked an arithmetic mean – the total of themarks awarded divided by the number of goals – is calculated. The termsof the Government Decision are that marks are only to be awarded for each fulfilled objective. At face value this would mean that an objectivethat hade only been partially fulfilled would receive a mark of zero; the

goal had not been fulfilled. This would be a perverse result. Theoretically,it could resulting a zero mark for the whole of goal related work. But thelowest mark available on the scale provided is 1 (unsatisfactory). For practical purposes, goals that have been unfulfilled to an unsatisfactoryextent should receive a mark of 1. Goals that have been satisfactorilyfulfilled should receive a mark of 2 and so on in accordance with themarking scheme set out in the preceding paragraphs.

• Each performance standard relevant to the evaluation is to be marked ona five point scale in similar way to the work directly related to goals. Theperformance standard headings can be deduced from a combination of

the content of Ministry of Public Administration Order Number 8 (which isdeal with in the final pert of this section of the guide), the goals and the jobdescription, supplemented by the material in this guide concerningevaluation criteria. The wording of the Government Decision is that theperformance standards are to be marked in relation to the work done infulfilling individual goals. In fact the two are separate issues: the face of the Government Decision would directly result in work on goals beingmarked twice in different ways. It also carries the unsustainableimplication that goal related work covers the entire spectrum of work doneduring the appraisal period. Clearly that is not the case. The jobspecification might be much broader than the goals. The performance

standards should be dealt with as free-standing items, though the skillsimplicit within them might have been exercised in relation to some or all of the goal related work. It should be noted that there is no mention in theGovernment Decision about attaching weighting to the various itemswithin the performance standards. This is provided for only in the notes tothe model appraisal report form. These notes set out that:-

o At least one of the performance standards shall be weighted as

‘very important’;


‘important’;


‘less important’.

• After the various performance standards have been marked an arithmeticmean is obtained for that sequence of marks in exactly similar manner tothe derivation of the mean for the marks awarded for goal related work.

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• A final mark fro the evaluation is then obtained as an average of the twointermediate marks – that awarded for goal related work and that for performance standards work. It should be noted that it is both theoreticallyand practically possible for this average not to be a true average figure.The calculation assumes that the sums available for goal related work and

for performance standards related work are the same. Clearly that neednot be the case. Goal related work might account for a greater or lesser proportion of total work. The same is true of performance related work,and there is too the issue of the ‘importance weighting’ of the performancestandards related work – see above. That finds no reflection in themarking schema and can only be dealt with in the comments sections of the report form. The statistical options to correct this unbalancing of thefinal average are not available in the Government Decision or in the Law.For correction they would require either weighted average (best) or modalcalculations based on a ranking of the weighted performance standardsmarks and the goal related marks, with the further gloss that the latter

marks would also require to be weighted by an appropriate means.

• Article 9 of the Government Decision simply contains a tabular conversionof the final grade mark to a verbal description. It is as follows.

o Mark 1.00 to 1.50 – unsatisfactory

o Mark 1.51 to 2.50 – satisfactory

o Mark 2.51 to 3.50 – good

o Mark 3.51 to 4.50 – very good

o Mark 4.50 to 5.00 – exceptional

• The material already set out concerning the interpretation of the verbalratings applies equally to the final grade marking.


46.The appraisal interview is governed by Article 10 of the Government Decision.Detailed information about the appraisal interview will be found in a separatesection of this guide and it is not repeated here, beyond saying that it open to

the evaluator to amend any of the various markings and comments on theappraisal report from in the light of information garnered at the appraisalinterview. The civil servant also has the opportunity to comment in writing onthe appraisal report form before it is submitted to the second signatory.

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47.Using the commentary box on the appraisal report form

48.The use of the commentary box by the evaluator is discretionary. There is

nothing either in the law or in the form that requires it to be used. However,the box is segmented and contains these parts.

• Outstanding results. The evaluator should record in this sectioncommentary, and justification, for any work that he or she rates asoutstanding. This should be taken for practical purposes as a mandatoryrequirement when an aspect of performance, either goal or performancestandard related, has been rated at mark 5.

• Objective difficulties encountered during the evaluated period. This sectionshould also be treated as mandatory for practical purposes. If the civil

servant has faced objective difficulties during the appraisal period, of whatever sort, then the evaluating officer should record them as a matter of equity.

• Other observations. This section should be used on an ‘as required’ basisto set out anything material to the appraisal that has not been covered inother parts of the form.

49.Action by the counter-signing officer

50.The first paragraph of Article 11 of the Government Decision requires that the

completed appraisal form is to be forwarded to the countersigning officer assoon as the appraisal interview has taken place. There are two definitions of counter-signing officer.

• The counter-signing officer is the hierarchical superior in the structure of the organisation to the evaluator. In the exceptional case where there isno such official, the counter-signatory is the civil servant holding thehighest public position appointed by the head or the deputy head of thepublic authority or institution.

• Where the appraised civil servant is the secretary of a commune, town or

territorial-administrative sub-division of a municipality, the counter-signingofficer is the prefect.

51.Although it is not stated explicitly in the Government Decision, the counter-signatory should assume responsibility for ensuring that the performanceappraisal process including the appraisal interview has been dealt withproperly. He or she then has these specific rights and responsibilities.

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• The right to amend the marks and the comments that have been made if these are not realistic. It is implicit in this right that the judgements of thecounter-signatory supervene those of the evaluator. The counter-signatorydoes not have to justify his or her judgements, save in the sense that anaggrieved civil servant has the right of appeal either directly to a court, in

the case of a local government secretary, or to the head of the publicauthority or institution and thence to a courting the case of other civilservants.

• The right to resolve on his or her own judgement any difference of opinionbetween the evaluator and the civil servant. Such differences of opinionwill have emerged during the appraisal interview and they will have beendocumented on the appraisal report form either by the evaluator, or thecivil servant, or by both of them. As in the former case, the judgement thatis applied is one at the discretion of the counter-signer, subject only to theappeal rights mentioned.

52.The counter-signatory is, of course, required to sign and date the form after he or she has made any necessary amendments to it and has entered anycommentary that they think appropriate on the form. If it has been altered, thefully completed form is then made known to the civil servant. No time limit isset for this apart from the general requirement that the appraisal action shall(for normal cases) be completed by 15th December.

53.The appeal rights of the civil servant

54. A civil servant has the right of appeal against a performance appraisal aboutwhich he or she is aggrieved. For the secretary of a commune, town or

territorial-administrative sub-division of a municipality the appeal lies directlyto the administrative court. In other cases the appeal of first instance is to thehead of the public authority or institution. He or she must submit the appealwithin 5 days of being informed of the outcome of the appraisal by thecounter-signatory. No particular form of appeal is prescribed, but the practicalassumption is that it will be made in writing. The content of the appeal is amatter for the individual civil servant and it is open to him or her to obtainwhatever advice from trade union or other sources as he or she wishes. Anyexpenses incurred would be a matter for the civil servant.

55.The appeal to the head of the public authority or institution is to be settled

within 15 days of the submission of the appeal and the civil servant is to benotified of the outcome of the appeal within 5 days of the settlement. No rulesare set regarding the appeal process and it is a matter for administrativedecision by the head of the public authority or institution. No right of an oralhearing, with or without representation appears in the law.

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56.If the civil servant continues to be aggrieved following consideration of his or her appeal by the head of the public authority or institution, then he or shehas the right to bring an appeal before the administrative court.

57.The provision of Ministry of Public Administration Order Number 8

58. A copy of Ministry of Public Administration Order Number 8 is included in theappendix to this guide. The Order sets out in tabular form the performancecriteria on which civil servants are to be appraised in 2002. The Order has nothowever been updated or republished. It should therefore be taken as ageneral guide to performance criteria to be used in that part of the appraisalreport that deals with performance standards. Two tables are provided. Thefirst deals with performance criteria for operational (execution) civil servant.The second deals with leading civil servants. The body text of the order makes explicit that the criteria to be applied to operational civil servantsshould also be applied to leading civil servants. The second tabular part(dealing directly with leading civil servants) is an extension of the first part, nota substitution for it.

59.The body text of the Order also contains material relevant to themeasurement of the attainment of objectives (goals). It makes explicit thatfour general measures of performance are to be applied to work done inrelation to goals. These are the following.

• Quantity – the volume of work done in measured units related to theoperations or activities carried out directed to goals.

• Quality – which should measure the degree of completeness and

appropriateness of the solutions applied to the goals.

• Cost – which should measure the extent to which the costs of the publicauthority or institution were contained in achieving the goal.

• Time – which should measure the time taken to achieve the goal; goals for which no specific time has been set should also be measured.

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APPRAISAL PROCEDURES FOR HIGH CIVIL SERVANTS

1. Introduction

2. High ranking civil servants are defined by Article 11 of Law 188/99. They are:

• The secretary general of the government and the deputy secretary generalof the government.

• State councilors.

• The secretary general and deputy secretary general in ministries andother bodies of the central public administration.

• Prefect.

• Deputy prefect.

• Secretary General to the prefect’s office, secretary general of the county

and of Bucharest municipality.• Directors general within ministries and other special bodies of the central

public administration.

3. The arrangements governing performance appraisal for those officials are setout in Article 58 of Law 188/99 where it is first established, in article 58(4),that a commission is to be appointed to make the appraisal. The commissionis appointed by the Prime Minister following the proposal of the Minister for Public Administration. More detailed arrangements are then set out inparagraph 13 onwards of annex 3 of the Government Decision concerning theorganisation and development of the civil servant’s career. This section of the

guide is primarily concerned with the content of that section of the annex.

4. The general approach to performance appraisal for high civil servants is thatthe appraisal commission stands part for the evaluator in the normal range of cases. In other respects, the detail regarding the appraisal assessment, thearrangements are the same as for civil servants generally, with someexceptions, for example those related to appeal rights.

5. The appraisal commission

6. The appraisal commission consists of five persons, a chairman and four

members. They are to be persons outstanding in the field of publicadministration and they are appointed by the Prime Minister on the basis of aproposal made by the Minister of Administration and the Interior. Noqualification conditions are set beyond outstanding reputation in relation topublic administration. No exclusions are set. However, the context of thelegislation is such that serving civil servants would be precluded. Retired highcivil servants would appear to be eligible.

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7. No specific rules are set regarding the conduct of business by thecommission. For example, it is not made explicit that the commission shouldsit as a body to consider appraisal evaluations or whether they might do sopurely on the basis of written material. The practicable presumption is that, atleast in the stages of finalizing appraisals, they should meet. No formal

arrangements are mandated for secretarial support to the commission. Thatwould then seem to be a matter for decision between the chairman of thecommission and the relevant minister.

8. The basis of appraisal

9. Article 14 of the Government Decision sets out in its preamble that theappraisal is to be done on the basis of a report of the activity of the high civilservant. The Decision goes on to say, in article 14(a), that the report is tocover the manner and the level of fulfilling the objectives set by the head of the public authority or institution and, in articles 14(b) and (c), that is extended

to cover the way in which objectives were fulfilled, the performance obtainedfrom managed structures, and proposals regarding the efficiency of themanaged structures based on the identification of deficiencies and the meansof eliminating them.

10.These arrangements are not transparent. For instance, it is not clear from theface of the Decision who should provide the report. In practice it seems likelythat the report would be drafted by the high civil servant himself or herself.But that leaves aside the issue of whether the report should be submitted tothe commission directly or by the head of the public authority or institution.For the present, all that can be said is that the commission can itself be

expected to establish the nature and provenance of the reports it expects toreceive. In any event, the report will rest, first, upon the job description of thehigh civil servant, second, upon the statement of goals contained in theprevious appraisal report, as these might have been amended or extendedduring the course of the appraisal period, third, some specific informationabout how and the extent to which goals and identified performancestandards have been met.

11.General appraisal methodology

12.Article 15 of the Government Decision provides the methodology for thecompletion of the appraisal. Its terms are that each component of the activityreport (above) is marked on a scale from 1 to 5 in similar manner to theappraisal arrangements for civil servants generally. Both goal attainment andthe achievement on performance standards are to be marked. Arithmeticmeans for work in relation to goals and for work in relation to performancestandards are to be obtained. The two are then to be averaged to obtain afinal overall marking for the appraisal and the overall mark is then equated to

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the narrative marking, ‘unsatisfactory’, ’satisfactory’, ‘good’, ‘very good’ or ‘exceptional’ in exactly similar manner as for civil servants generally.

13.The Government Decision does not specifically refer to the completion of thenarrative boxes on the model report form, but the assumption is that those

should be completed, as in the general case. No reference is made either tocarrying out of an appraisal interview or to arrangements to communicate theappraisal to the high civil servant. It seems that no performance appraisalinterview is envisaged. However, it is implicit that the high civil servant shouldbe shown the report and should have the opportunity to enter comments if heor she wishes to do so. This follows from the fact (see below) that an appealright is established for the high civil servant.


15.No provision is made in the Government Decision regarding the conduct of

appraisal interviews for high civil servants. The assumption is, therefore, thatthese are not to be carried out. There is no provision in the GovernmentDecision for the high civil servant to make representations to the appraisalcommission about the appraisal save that he or she is able to enter commentary on the appraisal form.

16.Appeals

17.Article 16 of the Government Decision provides that high civil servants whoare dissatisfied with the outcome of the performance appraisal may appealdirectly to the administrative court. No other appeal right is conferred.

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ARRANGEMENTS REGARDING THE INTERNSHIP PERIOD

1. Introduction

2. The law concerning the internship of civil servants is contained within Law188/99 (Articles 50 and 51) and in Annex 2 of the Decision Regarding theOrganisation and the Development of the Civil Servant’s Career (Date?). Thelatter contains the detailed arrangements for the assessment of the period of probation.

3. There are some differences of terminology between the different provisions,but the meaning is clear from the context. Thus, articles 50 and 51 refer to‘periods of internship’. The decision refers to the ‘debutant civil servant’, thatis to say one who is undergoing a period of internship. It also refers the‘beginner civil servant’. In this text we standardize on the name ‘debutant civilservant’ or just ‘debutant’.

4. General arrangements

5. Aside from the debutant there are two main participants in the internship or probation period. These are the counselor and the evaluator. The role andfunction of each is described below. A third person, the individualhierarchically superior to the evaluator, or the head of the public institution or authority, as the case might require, acts as a reviewer of the evaluationreport (see later), and may alter the evaluation and/or the recommendations.

6. The debutant

7. The debutant is under the same duty as all civil servants to attend the placeof business punctually and for the due time and to apply himself or herself tothe duties assigned in a professional and responsible manner. In addition, thedebutant must complete a report, in due form, at the end of the internship(probation) period and hand it to the evaluator (see later). The debutant’sreport covers these main items.

• A statement of office assignments (drawn from the job description of the post)

• Other (work) assignments carried out that have been established by a

superior civil servant or a person holding executive office.

• Specialised courses or other forms of advanced training carried out during theinternship period.

• Duties (if any) carried out outside of the institution.

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• Other (relevant) activities, for example articles, other publications, scientificpapers and the like.

• Description of duties carried out over the internship (probation) period.

•

Difficulties encountered during the internship (probation) period.

8. The counselor

9. The first of the other two main people involved is the ‘counselor’ (who is alsoreferred to in the decision as a ‘guidance counselor’). The guidance counselor is the person appointed as the day to day mentor of the debutant. The law issilent about the seniority of the guidance counselor vis a vis the debutant.Strictly, all that seems necessary is that the counselor is a permanent civilservant with requisite experience to offer guidance and assistance to thedebutant regarding the carrying out of his or her duties during the internshipperiod. In practice, the guidance counselor might also be senior in grade. The

guidance counselor completes a report on the debutant’s performance 5 daysbefore the end of the internship period. It is done using a prescribed form andis submitted to the head of the department in which the debutant has carriedout his or her activity during the internship. It covers:

• A description of the activity carried out by the debutant during the period of internship;

• A statement of the skills that the debutant has demonstrated during the periodof internship;

• A statement of the behaviour of the debutant during office hours during theperiod of internship;

• Conclusions regarding the performance of the period of internship andrecommendations. The law is silent about the nature of the recommendations,but they can be deduced from other parts of the decision. They are whether the debutant should be offered a permanent appointment or whether he or she should be discharged as failing to meet the required standards.

10.The role of the guidance counselor is particularly important in relation to thedebutant. It is he or she who provides day to day guidance and support. He or

she will have a major influence on the success or otherwise of the internshipperiod, not least by ensuring that the debutant is introduced to the work in aphased way and that he or she has a work load that is in keeping with their developing experience and ability. The Decision therefore contain specificprovisions for the replacement of the guidance counselor if they modify,suspend or terminate their work relationship or are otherwise unable tocontinue as a guidance counselor. They are then replaced by a suitable other person and must draw up a report on the internship period completed up to

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that point. Similar action occurs if the guidance counselor is sanctioned for adisciplinary offence under Article 70(3) of Law 188/99. The replacementguidance counselor is appointed by the head of the public authority or institution on the recommendation of the head of the department in which thedebutant works. The new guidance counselor must also be a permanent civil

servant.

11.The evaluator

12.The second main person concerned with the debutant and the period of internship is the ‘evaluator’. The evaluator is normally the head of thedepartment in which the debutant civil servant carries out his or her activities.An exception is provided for the case of public authorities or institutionswhose structure does not feature departments. In that case the evaluator isthe permanent civil servant holding the highest office [in the public authority or institution] appointed by the head of the public authority or institution. Theevaluator may not be simultaneously a guidance counselor. [Note. Is this tobe taken to mean for that particular debutant. Or is it an omnibusdisqualification?]

13.The evaluator has the following main functions, each of which is dealt with inmore detail in the following paragraphs.

• To receive and consider the report drawn up by the guidance counselor(s).

• To receive and consider the report drawn up by the debutant civil servant.

• To complete the evaluation report on the period of internship.

• To establish an evaluation rating.

• To make recommendations regarding the conclusion [or the repetition] of theinternship.

• To inform the debutant of the evaluation report and the recommendationsmade. This must be done within 3 days of the completion of the report.

14.Following completion, the probation report is forwarded to the head of thedepartment in which the debutant carried out his duties. If there is no such

person it is forwarded to the head of the public authority or institution.

15.Making the evaluation report

16.The report is made in a prescribed form provided in an annex to the Decision.It covers a number of specific items of activity. Each item is rated on scalerunning from 1 (the poorest) to 5 (the highest). An arithmetic mean is thencalculated from all the marks awarded. This final arithmetic mean is thentranslated into an overall evaluation rating. An overall evaluation rating of

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between 1.00 and 3.00 is to be regarded as unsatisfactory. An overallevaluation rating of between 3.01 and 5.00 is to be regarded as satisfactory.

17.The criteria to be evaluated during the review are as follows.

• Knowledge of the regulations applicable to the work performed during theinternship.

• Knowledge of the general principles governing public administration and theadministrative responsibilities of the public authority or institution.

• The general capacity to fulfill office duties. This should be interpreted to meanthe performance of all the duties on which the debutant has been engagedduring the period of internship.

• Adaptability and versatility in fulfilling office duties.

• Powers of judgement, defined as the ability to distinguish correctly betweenvarious options in fulfilling assignments.

• Communication ability, defined as ease in conveying ideas in writing or inspeech. Fluency in writing – the ability to write clearly and concisely.

• The capacity to work effectively in a team – the capability to fit in, tocontribute and make an effective contribution and, generally, to support theteam in achieving its objectives.

• Conduct during office hours.

• Other matters relevant to a career as a civil servant.

18.Action following the evaluation report

19.The evaluation report, which is shown to the debutant within 3 days of itscompletion, will contain an overall evaluation mark and a recommendationwhich may be for one of three outcomes.

• A recommendation that the debutant’s appointment is made permanent –overall evaluation rating 3.01 to 5.00, satisfactory.

• A recommendation that the debutant’s appointment is terminated – overallevaluation rating 1.00 to 3.00, unsatisfactory.

• A recommendation that the debutant’s period of internship is [extended][repeated] [Note: This is provided for by Article 7(2)(d) of the decision.However it does not find any reflection in Article 9 or in Article 10. Nor does itappear in Law 188/99. Clarification is therefore needed. It might be

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reasonable, for example, to extend/repeat internship if the overall evaluationmark is, say 2.50 to 3.00. For discussion, please.]

20.Appeal rights

21.A debutant civil servant who is dissatisfied with the recommendation madefollowing disclosure of the evaluation report has the right of appeal within afurther 3 days. The appeal is made to the civil servant hierarchically superior to the evaluator or, as the case might be, to the head of the public authority or institution.

22.That person shall consider:

• The report made by the debutant.

• The report made by guidance counselor(s).

• The report made by the evaluator.

23.After than consideration, the hierarchically superior civil servant may, if thefacts and circumstances warrant, it change markings on the report, changethe overall evaluation marking and change the recommendation regarding theappointment of the debutant to a permanent civil service position or hisdismissal.

24.The debutant is to be shown the evaluation report with any amendments thathave been made within 3 days of the date from which he or she filed hisappeal.

25.If the debutant civil servant remains dissatisfied with the result of the appealhe or she has the right to bring the matter to the court of administrativelitigation in accordance with the law.

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THE LAW

Law 188/99

Section 2 – The Internship

Article 50

(1) The internship period shall be aimed at testing the professional skills infulfilling the tasks and responsibilities of a public position, practicaleducation of early civil servants, as well as getting early civil servantsfamiliar with the specifics of the public administration and its requirements.

(2) The internship period shall be of 12 months for 1st class civil serviceagents, 8 months for 2nd class civil servants and 6 months for 3 rd class civlservants.

(3) The time spent by the civil servant for attending or promoting specialpublic administration training programmes for final appointment to a publicposition shall be considered as making up the internship.

Article 51

(1) When the internship period expires, and based upon the results of the

assessments thereafter conducted, early civil servants shall be:

a. appointed permanent civil servants in the class corresponding tothe personal educational background for the public positionsmentioned in Article [13] and shall have the grade of assistants.

b. Dismissed from the public position if their performance is foundunsatisfactory upon assessment.

(2) In the situations provided by paragraph (1)(b) as well as the situations inwhich a civil servant does not graduate from the special public

administration training programmes, the internship period shall not beconsidered as length of service in a public position.

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THE ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE OF THE DEBUTANT CIVIL SERVANT’SACTIVITY

Article 1

(1) The assessment of the debutant civil servant’s activity shall be madewithin 5 days from the completion of the probation period, usually by thehead of the department in which they carry out their activities, further called the evaluator.

(2) By way of exception, in the case of public authorities or institutions thestructure of which does not feature departments, the evaluator shall be thepermanent civil servant in the highest office, appointed by the head of thepublic authority or institution.

(3) The evaluator appointed under the previous paragraph may not also be aguidance counselor.

Article 2

(1) The evaluation of a beginner civil servant’s activity refers to assessing theway in which they have acquired the theoretical knowledge and thepractical skills necessary to fulfill the duties incumbent upon a public officeand to get acquainted with the specific activity of the public office or institution and to the exigencies of the public administration.

(2) The evaluation of the debutant civil servant’s activity shall be done on thebasis of:

a. The report made by the counselor;

b. The internship report made by the debutant civil servant;

c. The evaluation report made by the evaluator.

Article 3

(1) The report shall be done within 5 days before the finalizing of theinternship period and shall comprise the following elements:

a. the description of the activity carried out by the debutant civilservant;

b. the skills the debutant civil servant has proved in carrying out hisactivities;

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c. the behaviour of the debutant civil servant during office hours;

d. conclusions regarding the development of the activity andrecommendations for its finalization.

(2) The report shall be made according to the model presented in point 2 of this annex and shall be submitted to the head of the department in whichthe debutant civil servant carried out his activity.

Article 4

(1) In the case of modifying, suspending or ceasing the guidance counselor work relation, he or she shall draw up the report for the probation periodelapsed up to that time.

(2) In the case under sub paragraph (1), the head of the public authority of institution, on the recommendation of the head of the department where

the debutant carries out his activity, shall appoint another permanent civilservant as a guidance counselor for the unfulfilled probation period.

Article 5

(1) The provisions of Article 4 shall be applied accordingly if the guidancecounselor receives one of the sanctions stipulated under Article 70 (3).Letters c) to e) inclusive of Law 188/99 on the Status of the Civil Servants,with subsequent modifications and completions.

Article 6

(1) Upon the completion of the probation period, the debutant civil servantshall fill out a probation report according to annex number 3 to thisDecision.

(2) The probation report describes the activity carried out by the debutant civilservant during the probation period by presenting their assignments, theways used to fulfill them and difficulties they may have encountered in theprocess.

(3) The probation report shall be handed over by the debutant civil servant tothe evaluator.

Article 7

(1) For the evaluation of the debutant civil servant’s activity, the evaluator shall draw up the evaluation report for the probation period according toannex 3 to this Decision.

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(2) To fill out the evaluation report, the evaluator shall:

a. examine the report drawn up by the guidance counselor and theprobation report filled out by the debutant civil servant;

b. mark the evaluation criteria according to the fulfillment criteria;

c. establish the evaluation rating;

d. make recommendations about the completion or repetition of theprobation period.

Article 8

(1) The criteria for evaluating the debutant civil servant’s activity are thefollowing:

a. knowledge of the regulations specific to the field of activity;

b. knowledge of the principles governing public administration andadministrative relations within the public authority or institution;

c. capacity to fulfill office duties;

d. adaptability and versatility in fulfilling duties;

e. power of judgment, namely the ability to distinguish correctlyamong various options in fulfilling assignments;

f. communication, namely easiness in conveying ideas in writing andin speech, fluency in writing, ability to write clearly and concisely;

g. capacity to work in a team, namely the capability to fit into a team,to make a contribution by effective participation, to support theactivity of the team in achieving its objectives;

h. conduct during office hours;

i. other qualities recommending the debutant for a career as a civilservant.

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Article 9

(1) The marking of the evaluation criteria and the establishing of theevaluation rating shall be done as follows.

(2) Evaluation criteria shall be marked on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being thepoorest and 5 the highest. The mark expresses the assessment of themeeting of each criteria in fulfilling office duties:

a. The final mark is obtained as the arithmetic mean of the mark givenfor each evaluation criteria;

b. The evaluation rating is obtained by transforming the final mark asfollows – between 1.00 and 3.00, unsatisfactory, between 3.01 and5.00, satisfactory.

(3) The significance of the evaluation criteria is the following:

a. unsatisfactory – the debutant civil servant did not prove their theoretical knowledge and practical skills to the level necessary for a public position;

b. satisfactory – the debutant civil servant proved to master thetheoretical and practical skills necessary for a public position.

Article 10

(1) The evaluator shall put down in the evaluation report of the probation

period:

a. the recommendation as to the appointment of the debutant civilservant in a permanent public office, provided that the evaluationrating is satisfactory.

b. The recommendation for discharge on grounds of professionalincompetence under the law, provided that the debutant civilservant received an unsatisfactory rating.

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Article 11

(1) The evaluation report of the probation period shall be brought to theattention of the debutant civil servant within 3 days from the filing.

(2) A debutant civil servant dissatisfied with the result of the evaluation mayappeal within 3 days of knowing the result of the evaluation to the civilservant hierarchically superior to the evaluator. In the cases stipulatedunder Article 1(2) the appeal is to the head of the public institution or authority.

Article 12

(1) The civil servant hierarchically superior to the evaluator or, as the casemay be, the head of the public authority or institution, shall examine theevaluation report of the probation period, the report drawn up by the

guidance counselor and the report made by the debutant civil servant.

(2) The evaluation report may be altered according to the decision of thehierarchically superior civil servant or, as the case may be, the head of thepublic authority or institution, provided that they find that the observationsnoted down in it are not verified.

(3) The evaluation report of the probation period, altered under paragraph (2),shall be brought to the knowledge of the debutant civil servant within 3days of the filing of the appeal.

Article 13

(1) The debutant civil servant who is dissatisfied by the result of the appealmay take the case to the court of administrative litigation, under the law.

Ramboll Management

Phare Project Wednesday, June 02, 2004

GENERAL NOTES APPRAISAL INTERVIEWS

37




23.If the appraisal interview is to be successful particular attention should be

paid to the venue. It should beheld at a place and at a time when both partiescan be certain that they will not be disturbed. Telephones should be switchedoff or be diverted. The room should be quiet and comfortable, and should bereserved well in advance.

24.The manager should attribute importance to the occasion and should be seento do so. To the employee the interview will be an important event in theannual calendar. Employees talk to one another about the event. They ensurethat they complete their part of the documentation in advance and themanager should have plenty of time to read it and to analyse it beforehand.Often employees will make special efforts with their appearance and

presentation at the interview. They can be totally disillusioned if, at theinterview, the manager simply seems hell-bent on getting the formscompleted and either talks over them or does not listen carefully.

25.Appraisal interviews have considerable potential for maintaining andenhancing good human relations and managers should regard them asimportant events. They should be properly planned. All the relevantdocumentation should be to hand and should have been properly studied.Background information should have been entered on the form before theinterviews starts, thus heading off the need for notes to be taken. At the endof the interview the employee should leave the room with the following.

• A well founded belief that the manager is aware of his or her total job situationand that there was mutual understanding of the importance of the appraisalinterview.

• Clear knowledge of exactly what lies ahead in terms of the standards of jobperformance expected and the objectives to be achieved. The standards andthe objectives should have been mutually agreed. They should be a stretchfor the employee, but they should be achievable. The objectives should havespecific performance standards attached to them.

• An understanding that specific arrangements will be made to fill in any gaps inknowledge or skills that were identified.

•A general feeling that the perceptions, decisions and action were fair andreasonable.

• Motivation to perform well in the future.

26.The above represents a set of ideal attainments. But they do provide anassessor with a setoff goals to aim for, even if the employee is recalcitrant.

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27.The degree to which an appraisal interview is successful and its outcomedepends upon several factors.

• The personality and skill of the manager.

• The personality of the employee and his or her conduct during the interview.

• The situation of the interview.• The nature of the content that has to be discussed.

28.Managers often experience difficulty when faced with the prospect of tellingsomebody that their performance is below standard. Many question their rightto be judge and jury, making decisions that can have a serious effect on the

job future of other people. One answer to this is to adopt a different approach.Instead of sitting back and acting as a judge, pointing out weaknesses anddeficiencies, the manager takes up the role of coach and counselor. Heapproaches the problem as a change agent, a person who is willing to helpemployees and to show them how to improve performance. In this way, the

appraised employee becomes and active agent and not simply a passiveobject. The interview can then be seen as a part of an ongoing, progressivemovement in which the manager and the employee are working together towards improvement. It is a process that might involve the manager incoaching or recommending further training for the employee and it might alsoinvolve the manager in using counselling techniques. There are three mainapproaches to this kind of counselling.

• The tell and sell method. Here the manager seeks first to let the employeeknow how he is doing, then to gain the employee’s acceptance of theevaluation and, finally, to get him or her to follow the plan outlined for

improvement. The problem with this method is that considerable and unusualskill is required to get people to accept criticism and to change in the requiredmanner. There occasions when it is necessary to tell people unpleasant facts,but it might not be possible to provide the motivation required for change,unless resort is made to threats (almost invariably a bad tactic) or inducements.

• The tell and listen method. The evaluation is given to the employee, who isthen allowed to respond to it. Instead of the interviewer dominating thediscussion, he or she sits back and becomes anon-directive counselor in thesecond part of the discussion. The employee is encouraged to think things

out for himself or herself and to decide on what needs to be done. Theassumption is that he or she is more likely to change in these circumstancesthan if he or she had simply been told what to do. A further advantage of thisapproach is that the interviewer will profit more from the interview by receivingfeedback from the employee on how the job might be improved regardingsupervision, work methods and job assignments. But the method requiresconsiderable skill on the part of the interviewer in listening, reflecting feelingsand summarizing opinions.

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• The problem solving approach. Here the interviewer abandons the role of judge and becomes a helper. The appraisal is not communicated directly tothe employee. Instead, a discussion takes place of the work problems of theemployee, who is encouraged to think through his or her solutions to them,

including changes needed to behaviour to achieve improvement. Thisapproach motivates original thinking because it stimulates curiosity. It alsoprovides the intrinsic motivation that can be derived from work itself and theprocess of tackling work problems. Job satisfaction can be improved byrecognizing or enlarging the job (though this is not an exclusive characteristicof this process). The superior’s ability to provide advice and guidance isincreased, as is his or her ability to provide help in the form that it is needed.This approach also needs skill, but it is probably the most fruitful method andit is one that can be clearly linked to results oriented review techniques.

29.Following appraisal interviews, managers should ensure that all the agreed

action to provide training and/or counseling are followed up. It has beenknown for this crucial activity to be missed. Managers conduct very goodinterviews, but then fail to follow through. Appraisal without effective follow-upis almost a complete waste of time. The information gathered at an appraisalinterview should be entered on the relevant forms and copied to theappraiser’s supervisor and to the personnel department for action. However,there is an increasing tendency for managers to counsel employees duringappraisal interviews about the management of the employee’s owndevelopment. In this case, the follow ups decided upon during the intervieware converted into an action plan for the individual to implement with themanager’s guidance.

40



41



ProbationPeriod

6,8,12Months

Guidance

Counselor Report

(Within 5 days)

Debutant’s

Report(Within 5 days)

EvaluationDecision

Evaluator Report

(5 days)

Terminate

Services

AppealWithin 3

days

ReviewEvaluation

Further AppealNo timestated

Administrative

LitigationCourt

PermanentAppointment

Report passedto Head of

Department

Overall Schematic of InternshipReports

42



ProbationPeriod

6,8,12Months

Debutant’sReport

GuidanceCounselor

Report

Evaluator’s Report

Regulations Related to ActivityGeneral Public Administration Knowledge

Ability to fulfill office assignmentsAdaptability and versatility

JudgementCommunication

TeamworkConduct

Marks from 1 – 5

Takes arithmetic mean of total

Overall

Evaluation

Terminate

Appointment

ConfirmAppointment

Appeal

Within 3 days of evaluation result

To hierarchical

superior of evaluator. Or, if

need be to headof public

authority or

institution

EvaluationReviewed

(Notify 3days)

Termination

Content

Duties carried outAbilities proved

ConductConclusionsRecommendations

Content

Assignments (JobDescription)

Other assignmentsCourse and training

Outside duties

Publications etcGeneral description o f

activityDifficulties met

3.01 – 5Satisfactory1.00 – 3.00

Unsatisfactory

Reconsiders

Debutant’s ownreport.

Guidancecounselor’s

report.Evaluation

report.

Appeal toAdministrative

Court

Procedure for completingprobation reports

43



4. The law

5. The law concerning appraisal interviews is contained within annex 3 of theDecision Regarding The Organisation And Development Of The Civil

Servant’s Career. It reads as follows. The material related to the setting of objectives has also been included since that is relevant to the appraisalinterview.

Article 5

The evaluation procedure comprises the following three stages.

(1) Making of the evaluation report by the evaluator;(2) Interview;(3) Countersigning of the evaluation report.

Article 6 (Part)

With a view to making the evaluation report, the evaluator:

(e) sets the individual goals, the deadlines, as well as the training needsfor the next period to be evaluated.

Article 7

(1) The individual goals are specific targets established for the next period

based on tasks provided in the job description.(2) The individual goals must:a. be specific to the activities that involve the prerogatives of a public

power;b. be quantifiable – have a concrete materialization;c. have deadlines;d. be realistic – apt to be fulfilled within the deadlines set and with the

resources earmarked for them;e. be flexible – apt to be revised in terms of the changing priorities of

the respective public authority or institution.(3) Individual goals can be revised on a quarterly basis. The changes shall be

recorded in a document signed and dated by the evaluator and the civilservant to be evaluated. The document shall be annexed to the evaluationreport.

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11.Any telephone in the room should be switched off, or diverted, for the durationof the interview. Mobile phones should not be taken into the interview roomor, if they are, should be switched off. A ‘do not disturb’ notice should beattached to the door.

12.There are no particular guidelines regarding furniture. Obviously, there shouldbe chairs. Some interviewers prefer to sit at a table with the evaluated civilservant. Others do not. It is a matter of individual choice. Those who prefer face to face interviews argue that they are better because they reduce socialdistance.

13.The general nature of the interview

14.An appraisal interview, like any other interview, should be a directedconversation. The evaluator, with some points of exception dealt with later,will be the main director.

15.These are the main issues for the interview. Some of them are dealt with inmore detail in the paragraphs that follow.

• Ice-breaking. This is a formal interview. It is of considerable importance to thecivil servant and he or she is likely to be nervous, especially if they suspectthat bad news is going to be conveyed. The evaluator too will experience anatural degree of anxiety. He or she has the responsibility of steering aninterview which, at least in part, might well be difficult. Time must therefore bespecifically allocated for settling down. Perhaps five minutes or so – andlonger if it seems needed. The time can be used, for example, to discuss the

work on which the civil servant is currently employed – to confirm that theyare still doing the same range and type of duties. It might be appropriate tomake some general social remarks. The objective should be to engage thecivil servant in a conversation, brief and reasonably superficial though it mightbe.

• Explain the purpose and structure of the interview. This is a crucial stage. Theinterviewer should carefully explain the ground to be covered. He or sheshould setout clear stages for the interview. The formalities of objectivesetting and establishing training needs should be covered. The fact thatinformation about individual markings and comments, and the overall rating,

will be given should be explained. The action in case of any disagreementshould be stated. Action regarding the civil servant’s commentary and thefinal signing of the report should be made clear. Finally, an indication of totaltime should be given. All this should be done at every appraisal interview,regardless of whether the civil servant has had appraisal interviews before,even with the same interviewer. The objectives are manifold.

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o It establishes the evaluator as the (main) director of the interview.

o It makes clear the pattern of the interview and makes clear that

everything will be covered in its course.o It sets the events of the interview in the perspective of the whole.

o It makes clear that the civil servant will be a participant and not just apassive attender.

o It assigns specific responsibilities to the civil servant.

o It sets a time frame for the interview.

• Deal with past objectives, their character, the timelines and the performanceindicators attached to them and, finally but not least, how the work on eachhas been assessed and marked. (See following.)

• Deal with individual aspects of performance. State what aspects of performance have been marked, how they have been assessed, commented

upon and marked. (See following.)

• Deal with the narrative part of the evaluation report. (See following.)

• Discuss and deal with any reservations about the evaluation on the part of thecivil servant. (See following.)

• Set and discuss the objectives, timelines and performance indicators for thenext appraisal period. (See following.)

• Establish training needs to be met in the next appraisal period. (Seefollowing.)

• Review the interview with the civil servant. (See following.)

• Bring interview to a formal conclusion. (See following.)

• Take post-interview action. (See following.)

16.More on the interview as a directed conversation

17.Very few individuals are naturally gifted interviewers. Competence comes withtraining, a lot of practice and a lot of introspection. One of the major skills thathas to be acquired, if you are to be truly effective, is that of conductinginterviews as controlled conversations.

18.This means that from the start of an interview you should engage the personbeing interviewed as a participant. And you should be at pains throughout theinterview to ensure that this remains the case. The objective is to have the

48



person being interviewed as a controlled, almost but not quite equal, partner.Much of the groundwork for doing this takes placed before the interviewbegins. You should play out scenarios in your mind about how you will dealwith particular parts of the interview; especially those parts that are likely tobe problematical. You should specifically think about the type of phrasing you

will use, the likely response from the civil servant, and how you will respond tothem. Ideally, you should play these scenarios through three or four moves.The scenarios will be highly unlikely to play out in practice as you haveimagined, but you will have prepared the groundwork for the scenarios thatwill occur.

19.There are also a number of watch points used by experienced interviewersthat you might consider.

• Always use conversational language – expect to engage a response. For example, ‘What I have done with this objective is………….You might like to

comment’. Not, ‘Your mark for……….is…….’

• Make a specific, rational choice to use open or closed questions. There aretimes when either is appropriate, but be sure you know which is which. Openquestions invite a response beyond a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Closed questionsdo the opposite. Structure your questions and comments to the content of theinterview at that point and to your intentions.

• Switch the style of the interview at particular points according to what isnecessary. There are times when you will want to be a clear information giver.At other times, you might want to be a sympathetic listener.

• Vary the pace of the interview. This needs to be done according to level of engagement of the interviewee and according to their stamina – for example,are they going into information overload.

• Watch your body language. Too much eye contact can be as bad as too little.However, do watch that you maintain eye contact at critical points of theinterview, for example when giving bad information. You will otherwise losecredibility. Watch too your arm movements. Folded arms generally meandefensiveness and vulnerability – that goes for the interviewee too.Exaggerated hand, or more particularly arm, movements are generally seen

as threatening.

20.There are a great many books and guides published on interviewingtechniques. Some of them are specifically directed to interviewing within thecontext of human relations management. If you are doing a lot of appraisalinterviewing you might find it helpful to read one or more of them.

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21.Dealing with completed objectives

22.The objectives for the current appraisal period will be contained in theappraisal report for the past appraisal period. You will also need to have

reviewed a copy of any new or revised objectives that have been set sincethe start of the appraisal period. This should have been attached to the lastappraisal report.

23.Arrangements for marking and commenting upon the various objectives thathave been set are contained in other sections of this Guide. Here, concern isonly with the action to be taken at the appraisal interview. You should do thefollowing for each of the objectives in turn, bearing in mind, of course, whathas already been said about conducting the interview as a directedconversation.

•

Check the wording of the objective. Was it clear and meaningful to the civilservant? Was it in force throughout or only during part of the appraisalperiod?

• Check the timeline for the objective. Was it appropriate? Did anycircumstances intervene (of which you were unaware when you wrote theevaluation) that made the timeline inappropriate? Were there any (not knownabout) extraneous factors that made the timeline inappropriate?

• Check the performance indicator(s). Were they correctly understood? Arethey accurately expressed? Did they apply throughout the evaluation period,or only for part of it?

• Subject to the previous points (any or all of them) might lead you to want toamend your marking and/or the comments) convey to the civil servant themark you have given and the comments you have made. Take care to do soin a way that enables the civil servant to comment or to enter any points of reservation.

• After you have given the information, make a verbal break in the interviewand invite the civil servant to comment, if he or she want to do so. Then moveon to the next objective.

• After you have dealt with all the objectives, make another verbal break in theinterview. Summarise the points you have made. Ask the civil servant if theywant to make any further points on this aspect of the report.

• Note any amendments you want to make to the markings or to thecommentary.

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24.Individual aspects of performance

25.The evaluation report will have set out within it the individual aspects of performance on which the civil servant has been appraised. Each item willhave attached to it a weighting of importance of the aspect of performance.

Other parts of this Guide deals with the completion of the evaluation of theindividual aspects of performance. Here, as with the material relating toobjectives, concern is only with the action to be taken during the appraisalinterview.

26.The same comments regarding the conversational character of the interview,use of questions and so on apply. You should take the following action.

• Consider each of the items of individual performance that have beenevaluated and confirm their relevance. Also, confirm the weightings that havebeen attached to the individual items of performance.

• Note any points that should be deleted or brought in or any weightings thatshould be changed. Note too any disagreements expressed by the civilservant.

• Convey to the civil servant the marks you have given and the comments thatyou have made. Take care to do so in a way that allows the civil servant tocomment and to make any points of reservation that may have.

• Summarise the points that have been made and give a final opportunity for comment and reservation.

• Note any amendments that you want to make to the markings or to thecommentary.

27.Dealing with the narrative report

28.The narrative report is quite short. It deals with three matters: an outstandingresults that have been achieved; objective difficulties encountered during theevaluation period; and, other observations.

29.Opinions vary over whether the narrative report should simply be read out.The arguments in favour of doing so are that it is accurate and fulfills the need

for openness. The counter-arguments are mainly that, by this time in theinterview, the civil servant will be facing information over-load and simplymight not take it in.

30.The best approach is probably to deal with the narrative report in sections. Apause should be made at the end of each section to allow the civil servant tocomment if he or she thinks that appropriate. If the final, ‘other observations’

51



section is at all lengthy, it would be appropriate to break that down intosections, probably of a sentence at a time, or two at most.

31.After the full narrative report has been disclosed, it will usually be appropriateto make another verbal break in the interview and to invite any further

comment.

32.As with the other sections of the form, notes should be made by theinterviewer of any points of amplification or amendment that should be made.

33.Disclosing the final evaluation score

34.It would be appropriate at this point to tell the civil servant of the final score of the evaluation that has been made.

35.However, by this time in the appraisal interview, it might be that the evaluator wants to make some substantive changes to the markings and the comments

that have been made. These changes, taken as a whole, might, in somecircumstances, be sufficient to cause a change in the final score.

36.The law is silent about when these changes are to be made and there is noprovision for the form to be taken away and revised. The implication is thatthe revisions are done during the appraisal interview. We suggest that theyare done at this point.

• Care needs to be taken that any changes made are fully justified. Theinterviewer must be careful that the dynamics of the interview are not allowedto overshadow objective judgement.

• Sufficient time needs to be taken to ensure that written commentary isaccurate.

• Changes made should be read over to the civil servant and any further comments noted.

• Amendments to the final score of the evaluation should be particularlycarefully considered. If the evaluation has been done properly in the firstplace, it should be rare for there to be any substantial change in this mark.

37.Goal setting for the next appraisal period

38.The form provides for up to five goals to be set for the forward period, butinterviewers should not feel constrained by the form. They might set fewer goals or, exceptionally, set more.

39.The goals should be of two broad types. First, there are goals that emanatefrom the content of the appraisal form. These are goals designed to remedyspecific deficiencies or weaknesses that have been identified. Second, are

52



goals, not specifically aligned to the evaluation, but which a generally relevantto the work activity of the civil servant in the coming year.

40.The following points should be observed in relation to goal setting.

• Each goal should be specific. It should require unambiguous action.Examples are,

o Reduce error rate on casework to no more than X%.

o Deal with all correspondence within 7 days of receipt.

o Improve staff management by better communication, better target

setting and monitoring on a daily basis.

o Reduce drafting on secondary legislation to three iterations.

o Reduce caller waiting times to 40 minutes.

• Each goal should have a performance measure attached to it. Theperformance measure should be objective, it should represent a stretch target(it should be achievable, but only by the official extending himself or herself)and, wherever possible it should be number based. Thus, in the examplesgiven,

o Error rate to be reduced to Z% by end month1, to Y% by end of month

2 and to X% by end of month 3 and maintained thereafter.

o Backlog to be reduced by 30% each month. 7-day clearance time to beachieved by month 4.

o Specific communication plan to be in place end month 2. All current

objectives to be reviewed and, if necessary, replaced by end month 3.Daily monitoring introduced immediately and maintained.

o Revise planning of secondary legislation by end month 1. Frame and

introduce new drafting procedures end month 2. Reduce to 3 iterationsfrom month 3 and maintain.

o

Review caller handling arrangements month 1. Introduce revisedprocedures by end month 2. Achieve and maintain reduced waitingtimes by end month 2.

• Each goal should have a deadline attached to it. This has been done withinthe examples given. However, there will be cases, projects are a commonexample, where there is a specific final deadline.

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41.Training needs

42.The form requires an entry, ‘Training programmes to be attended’. This isunduly restrictive and it should be interpreted to mean all forms of specifictraining. Thus, the training to be provided might include seminars andconferences, where appropriate, as well as actual training courses run by thepublic authority or institution or others. It might also include such training asspecified (and, if necessary, supervised) reading, specially selected caseworkor other work done under the supervision of a more experienced colleague,and periods of attachment to other units for the purpose of broadeningexperience.

43.It is not explicit on the face of the form that the training needs to be directlyrelated to deficiencies shown by the evaluation. However, this is the case withregard to the law. There training is directly tied to evaluation. However, inpractice, the opportunity can be taken to assess the general training needs of

the individual.

44.As a matter of common sense and good practice only training should beidentified that can be realistically provided during the forthcoming evaluationperiod. The form does not require that the anticipated cost of the trainingshould be identified, but that should be implicit in any recommendation that ismade.

45.Review the interview with the civil servant

46.It will be appropriate, at this stage of the interview, to carry out a brief review

of all that has been discussed.

• Amendments made to the commentary or the markings should be rehearsed.

• The civil servant should be given a further opportunity to express commentsor observations.

• If there are remaining points of disagreement, these should be brought intothe open and discussed in a final attempt to reach resolution. Note that it isnot a requirement that the appraisal interview should result in agreement, butthere should be a genuine attempt to reduce disagreements to the minimum.If disagreements remain, they are a matter for consideration by the secondsignatory to the evaluation report, who will have the evaluation report (as itmight be amended) and the report of the appraisal interview available.

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47.Comments by the evaluated civil servant

48.The civil servant should at this point be invited to comment on the (amended)report and given sufficient time to do so. The implication of the report formand the law is that the comments should be entered during the interview.

49.No pressure or influence of any sort should be brought to bear on the civilservant regarding the content, style or manner of the comments he or shedecides to enter. That is entirely a matter for the civil servant and it will beconsidered by the second signatory as part and parcel of his or her action onthe evaluation report.

50.Signature of the evaluating officer

51.The evaluating officer is required to sign and date the (amended) evaluationreport.

52.Concluding the interview

53.It is the job of the interviewing officer to bring the interview to a proper conclusion. By this point all the relevant matter will have been discussed. It isnot appropriate at this stage to re-visit any part of the interview. In particular,any points of remaining disagreement should not be re-opened.

54.Any appraisal interview, even one done by an excellent interviewing officer and involving a high performing civil servant is likely to have been stressful insome degree. This is the more so, if performance has been poor or criticismshave had to be conveyed. This should be taken into account.

55.The interviewing officer should invariably end the interview by thanking thecivil servant for his or her attendance. It is not necessary to go beyond thisand certainly the interviewing officer should not at this stage try to provide

justification for any difficulties that have arisen.

56.Finally, the civil servant should be told that the evaluation report will now beforwarded to the (named) second signatory, together with a note of theappraisal interview.

57.The appraisal interview report

58.It is standard practice to forward the evaluation report to the second signatorywith a brief factual note of the interview - when it took place and how long itlasted. It is not a requirement of the law that the interviewer should provide anote of any remaining points of disagreement between the evaluator and thecivil servant. While this is commonly done, it might be dispensed with. Thecivil servant has had the opportunity to enter written comments on the

55



(amended) report and will have been able to use this opportunity to bringpoints to the attention of the second signatory.

Ramboll Management

Phare Project Thursday, June 03, 2004

56



CASE STUDY

Mr. CORNELIUS NEGRU

Personal details

Date of birth 17th April 1973Place of birth Cluj, RomaniaPlace of Residence 12 Avenue Klasser, BUCHARESTMarital Status Married, one child.

Employment Details

Current employment Executant Civil ServantPost Finance Auditor

Ministry Ministry of Transport, BUCHARESTDate of seniority in post 2nd March 1998

Previous experienceRomanian Military LieutenantPeriod March 1995 –February 1998

Education

University Batchelor’s Degree International StudiesMilitary Academy Commissioning Course 1995

Languages Romanian – fluent written and spoken (native)Russian - Spoken 5, written 4English – Spoken 3, written 3French – spoken 3, written 3.

General Description

Mr. Negru is not one of nature’s civil servants. For preference he would still be amilitary officer. He is incisive, focused on results, prickly and ambitious. Nobodywould describe him as a comfortable colleague. Everyone thinks of him as acommitted employee.

His strengths are apparent. He has no nonsense about his approach. He goesstraight to the point and nobody is in any doubt where he stands on issues. Thisis both a strength and a weakness in his present job.

57



He can see straight through flummery. He relies for his satisfaction upon beingable to order complex data and he has made himself expert in systems. He iscurrently studying, part-time, for an accountancy qualification, the Associateshipof Certified and Chartered Accountants. He has already completed theintermediate examination – at his first attempt – and is mid-way through the final

course. His expertise in accounts extends not just to the structure and content of trading and profit and loss accounts and to balance sheets, he is able to moveinto accounting ratios and to cash flow and residual balance calculations. Assuch, as a technician, he is a highly valued member of the audit team. A unit thatworks very much on an annual work cycle.

He has developed considerable expertise in desk-top computing. His main forteis Microsoft Excel. Not only does he use all the standard features of theprogramme, he has developed personal macro commands. These have beenadopted widely by his colleagues and he acts as the (successful) trouble shooter for such problems as do arise. He is similarly expert in the Word programme

including especially the use of data tables.

His interpretation of accounts is strong. His audit enquiries are soundly basedand clearly expressed, and he follows them through assiduously to a conclusion.On the other hand, he has more open points on his accounts than any other official in his unit at the year end.

His deficiencies are most readily apparent when he is asked to move wider thanhis own particular expertise. If he has not invented it, then it seems of littleaccount. Thus, though his knowledge would seem to fit him for it well, he has notreally been able to move into the wider body of action of his unit. Increasingly,

audit is being seen as a value-added service. The work progresses throughapproval of accounting practice, to the data on which accounts are based and toconsideration of the output. Emphasis is more and more being placed ondeveloping a sound working relationship with the account preparers andproviders. Mr. Negru falls down heavily.

His work relationships are not based on appreciation of equality. His ethos is thathe has a job to do. He knows from experience how it is best to be done. That isthe best way of dealing with it. Relationships are only of value to him, if theyenable him to get through his own work faster and better. As such, he stands asa bastion of past good practice. The present is passing him by and he will find itdifficult to fit in to the more broadly based future.

Many attempts have been made to involve him in wider work. In the last year hewas made counselor of a debutant civil servant, one who had already completed6 months in post when he was assigned and who seemed on a straight track toconfirmation of his appointment. Mr. Negru terrified him. He brought the fullpower of his expertise to bear on the trainee’s accounts, virtually doing them all

58



himself from first principles. The debutant’s morale was quite undermined and hisprobationary service has had to be extended – under a different counselor.

As an expert, Mr. Negru was made secretary of the general working party of thefinance and policy departments. Neither was this a success. His expertise

enabled him to dominate meetings and what has emerged is a very one sided setof conclusions that would strengthen considerably audit practice, while leavingpolicy development in a subsidiary and subordinate role. This has led toorganisational difficulties. The Director of Finance wants to disavow the report,and in doing so would have the support of the Director of Policy. But 6 monthshave been spent preparing the report and not all of the conclusions areworthless.

Mr. Negru is also hampered, in practice, by what he sees as right. He is forcefulin making his point, to a point of fault. His words bullet from his computer with nospace between them for argument or other opinion. And he speaks as he writes.

The delivery is spare and staccato. He would prefer to let figures tell their ownstory, and bemoans that there are many for whom this is not possible.

His work output is high. His accounts, which deal mainly with road and railtransport, are the most complex in the portfolio of the work of his unit. He hasdealt with them for three years. There is little that he does not know about them,and no place to hide skeletons. He delves with relish into the minutiae. His auditqueries range from the basic data reflected in the accounts, to the handling of that data in the trading accounts and balance sheets, to the accounting basis of investment decisions, to the content of the annual report on accounts.

At present, the Ministry is spending a lot of money on external accountants. Amajor accounting firm has been brought in on a 3 month contract to examinework practice. The lead consultant is a young woman partner whose main areaof expertise lies with the airline industry and with financial services provision. Sheand Mr. Negru have been at loggerheads from the start. Basically he sees her asover-rated, over-paid and over-here. His intention, so far successful, is to blindher with detail. But, over the period, this will not work. The accountants have thesupport of the Director of Finance and the Minister and their job is to come upwith a conspectus for the audit department’s activity. That means moving abovethe detail and becoming equipped to deal with large issues and personalities.

So where does Mr. Negru stand. He is doing a good, if restricted job. He is in themold of the old-style auditor and, because he has dealt with the accounts for along time, he has the respect, if not the admiration, of the organisations on whichhe focuses. Ideally, the time has come for him to move on to other finance andfigure related work, but he would not be an easy placement. Could statisticalservices use him?

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Requirement

Based on this information, complete an annual appraisal report on Mr. Negru.

•Mark and comment upon the extent to which objectives have been fulfilledand deduce an overall performance mark for this aspect of his work.

• Mark and comment on individual aspects of his performance as required bythe report form, and deduce an overall mark. Assume priorities for individualaspects of performance according to the information you have been given.

• Write an overall commentary on performance this year.

• Set a number of objectives for next year and assign performance measures tothem.


61



Public authority or institutionMinistry of TransportGeneral directorateFinancial policy and servicesDirectorate

Financial services - auditDepartmentTransport AuditOffice Bucharest

Approved

Head of the publicauthority of institution

Job DescriptionNumber …..

Name of the job Auditor Expert

Level of the job Executant

Identification of the public position

Name Cornelius NegruClass 1Professional degree (if any) BA International Studies. ArmyCommissioning Course

Main purpose of the job Financial audit of the accounts of transport industry

sectors – road and rail

Requirements for holding the job

Specialised training Audit Courses (Civil Service provided)

Advanced training None required.

Computer operation/programming End user computing Microsoft Wordand Excel

Foreign languages None required.

Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Facility for figure work anddata analysis. Good drafting skills and oral skills. Ability to analyse,synthesise financial and other data and written information. Self motivationand self reliance. Able to participate effectively as a member of the auditteam. Able to set and achieve work objectives. Able to hold personal

62



CASE STUDY

MISS MARIA BACU

Personal details

Date of birth 26th November 1973Place of birth Timosoara, RomaniaPlace of residence 14 Frumase Street, BUCHARESTMarital Status Single

Employment details

Current employment Executant Civil ServantPost Inspector, Social InsuranceMinistry Ministry of Labour, Social Solidarity and the

Family, BUCHARESTSeniority 4th April 1999

Previous experience

Project Assistant Phare/Romania Social Welfare ProjectPeriod 18 months, January 1997 – June 1998

BUCHAREST.

Lawyer Commercial and civil lawPeriod3 years January 1994 – December 1997

Education

University Master of Laws, University of Paris

Languages Romanian – fluent written and spoken (native).French – written 5, spoken 5.English – written 5. spoken 5.German – written 4, spoken 4.

General

To do her job well Miss Bacu has to use a wide range of skills. She deals withentitlement to old age pension. Many of the people she deals with are either pensioners or people on the verge of becoming pensioners. Often they are inreduced circumstances. They might not be very educated. All of them areapprehensive about their financial future.

65



But these are not her only clients. She also has to deal with employers who havepaid the social insurance contributions of the pensioner. She must liaise on adaily basis with the civil servants who maintain the records of contributions. Shemust link with other parts of the Ministry that might have benefits already inpayment. These contacts are sometimes face to face, especially if there are

difficulties to be resolved, but often they are done using a computer on adedicated system or via e-mail.

The job is a complex one. There are several schemes of old age pension thatoverlap. Information relevant to a claim might be many years old. Thisinformation needs to be brought together and an adjudication made of the rightsof the individual. The process demands a detailed knowledge of social securitystatute and case law. Keeping up to date is a considerable problem.

How does Miss Bacu perform? First she is very client oriented. This comes inlarge part from her background both as a lawyer and as a person who

administered a large project budget. Second, she has a lot of personal sympathyfor her clients. She was brought up in relatively poor circumstances. She is theyoungest, and most successful, of her family, and her parents were pensionersby the time she finished university.

Her spoken work is very effective. She communicates with a real knowledge of her subject matter. She understands the legal principles involved very clearly,she is currently undertaking the final part of a PhD degree in civil law withparticular reference to the provision of private pensions in old age. Indeed shehas recently been head-hunted, unsuccessfully, by a private company dealingwith occupational pensions. Her reasons for turning this tempting offer down was

that it did not offer the range of work on which she was currently engaged. Nor would it have offered her the variety of face to face contact she at present enjoys.

She is as effective in her written work as she is at her oral. She boils downcomplex issues into a simple hierarchy of choices. It is easy for her superiors tofollow her reasoning and her decisions are not often overturned or superseded.Nor do her decisions fail to meet the test of appeal tribunals, where she is askilled advocate. She is similarly successful at (occasional) hearings of theadministrative court. Her briefs to the advocates concerned are models of clarityand conciseness.

Her virtues are however tempered. She sets high standards for herself and isdisappointed when others fail to meet them. She can be a waspish critic of someof her peers. This is especially so when they are late in processing work onwhich she depends for her own performance. Sometimes too she is not an easysubordinate. Her technical skills are such that she could easily occupy a post of higher responsibility.

66



In the last year she has been acting as a main technical point of reference to agroup of social security consultants from the World Bank. They are undertaking amulti-faceted project. Their first objective is to up-date the computer system inthe Ministry. That involves business process re-engineering. The initial task istherefore to review and develop all the administrative and legal systems relevant

to contribution recording and to benefit adjudication. About 120 man-months of consultant effort is being delivered in course of this year and the next. Miss Bacuis well qualified to act as a project liaison officer. She understands the contentand approach and she has no difficulty in working with consultants. Importantly,she understands from experience the financial and work constraints within whichthe consultants have to work.

Miss Bacu has a considerable background in the computing system currentlyused by the Ministry. She understands both its strengths and its weaknesses. Itis currently main-frame based and maintained by a team of informatics personnelworking both at the headquarters level and at the data processing centres (two)

in the regions. She has now been using the systems for three years and is anexpert user: so much so that she is the natural point from which to seek advicefor those who are new to the work and the organisation. She has built upon thisexpertise in dedicated systems by undertaking Ministry sponsored courses thisyear in the advanced use of the Word programme and the Excel programme.She has also picked up the use of Power Point and has made a number of well-researched and well-delivered presentations to the staff and to the consultants.

She has a blind spot about Ministers and dignitaries. These individuals do notusually have a lot of technical expertise. They make up for it by the politicalperspectives they can offer. But Miss Bacu has little time for that. To get the best

from her, the best placed person is one who can match her expertise. Her briefsto senior parts of the office can therefore be a bit overwhelming. She is not toowell able to put herself in the position of the person who needs must only have agrasp of an overview.

Her abilities lead her to be ambitious. She was a successful candidate this year for a chief of bureau post: she passed the written test and the interview withcommendably high marks, but was just short of being the highest scoringcandidate. She is an original thinker, well able to see the strengths andweaknesses in cases and arguments, and well able to work her way around whatmight to some be uncomfortable precedent.

Currently she carries a high case-load. To her credit she does not hold post inexcess of 7-days old – if it looks like this is going to happen she simply extendsher hours. Her unresolved case-load is simply a function of delays in other partsof the office, and gives no cause for concern.

Objectives

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Miss Bacu had the following objectives recorded on her personnel appraisal formlast year

First, she was to establish by the middle of the year extended and adequateterms of reference for that part of the World Bank Project focusing on her

responsibilities. She was to take an active part in the development of theInception Report and ensure that it fully met the needs of this unit. This has beendone, but there is a distinct difference between the technical proposal made bythe consultants and the terms and timing of the work they are now undertaking.The difference is documented and is to the advantage of the Ministry.

Two, improvements were to be sought immediately in the processing of workintended for Ministers and dignitaries. More work has been done. From atechnical point of view, it has been of a high standard, but it is still too clearlyemanating from an expert official. Ministers and dignitaries have generally beenpleased with the content, but they have amended the approach to meet their

needs.

Third, improvements were sought immediately in relationships with peers,especially with those not as technically competent as Miss Bacu. In the event,Miss Bacu has increased her technical efficiency and made herself moreindispensable to all her colleagues.

Fourth, Miss Bacu was to extend her range of competence to be able to deputiseeffectively for absent superior officials. This has been fully accomplished. Thework was in a better state after Miss Bacu’s intervention.

Requirements

Based on this information, complete an annual appraisal report on Miss Bacu.

• Mark and comment upon the extent to which objectives have been fulfilledand deduce an overall performance mark for this aspect of her work.

• Mark and comment on individual aspects of her performance as required bythe report form, and deduce an overall report mark. Assume priorities for individual aspects of performance according to the information you have beengiven.



Ramboll Management Thursday, June 10, 2004

68



Public authority or institutionMinistry of Labour and Social SolidarityGeneral directorateSocial security operations

DirectoratePensions and benefitsDepartmentPensionsOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Inspector – Social Insurance

Level of the job Executant - Expert


Name Maria BacuClass 1Professional degree (if any) Master of Laws, Paris.

Main purpose of the job Casework related to the award and payment of claims

for retirements pension and associated benefits and for their maintenance.


Specialised training None apart from ministry provided training.

Advanced training None

Computer operation/programming Use of ministry pensions and benefitsystems. Use of Microsoft Word and Excel.

Foreign languages None

Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Able to handle heavy andcomplex caseload, setting and achieving clearance priorities. Adaptableand self reliant with clear ability for problem solving. Able to analysecomplex situations presented in writing and orally. Good communicator both in writing and orally. Able to fit into and work well in small teams.Good knowledge of ministry specific software and of Word and Excel. Able

69



to act as guidance counsellor for debutants as assigned. High standard of probity and ethics.

Specific requirements (travelling, delegations, secondment)Occasional travelling within Bucharest and in Romania. May be seconded

to other offices within normal rules.

Managerial competence (knowledge, qualities, aptitudes)None required.

Responsibilities Casework in relation to the award of retirement pension andassociated benefits. Liaison with contributions unit and other units that might beproviding overlapping benefits. Written work, letters and minutes, associated withcasework. Provision of briefing and other information and material to ministersand dignitaries as needed. General administrative, considerative or committeework relevant to retirement pension and associated benefits. Use of ministry

specific software and of Word and Excel. Guidance counsellor to debutant civilservant if assigned.

Competence limits (decision freedom) Adjudication authority for benefit andpension award and renewal.

Delegation of responsibilities Not appropriate.

Relationships

Internal

Hierarchic – subordinate to………………superior to……………..

Functional Within team. To contributions and other benefit units. To anyworking groups to which she might be assigned.

Control None

Representation Of team and unit as might be prescribed from time totime.

External

With public authorities and institutions With ministry of Health, other ministries and local authorities as might be required by casework or other duties.

With international organisations None envisaged except in relation tovisiting foreign delegations.

70



CASE STUDY

MISS ALICIA FLORESCU

Personal details

Date of birth 26 September 1966Date of seniority 1st January 1996Marital status SingleHome Flat 26 – 138 Blvd Titelescu, BUCHAREST

Employment details

Position held Chief of Office – Health ServicesMinistry Ministry of Health

Mental Health Unit

Previous experience

Other jobs 1992- 1995 Executant – Policy ExpertMinistry of HealthHospital Services

1990 – 1992 Executant – Policy ExpertMinistry of HealthNursing Services

1985 -1990 Registered NurseGeneral Hospital, Cluj

Education

University Bachelor of Science – NursingRegistered General and Mental Nurse

Languages Romanian – fluent written and spoken (native)English – written 4, spoken 4

History

Miss Florescu is a well qualified and experienced health professional. She didwell as a practical nurse and the time she left the nursing profession and movedinto administration, she was the nurse in charge of a day psychiatric centre. She

72



made the move because she wanted to be able to contribute in a wider sphere of influence, but she still maintains voluntary links with hospitals and care centres.

Her greatest is asset in her work is her wealth of clinical and practicalexperience. She really does know the health ands hospital field very well. She is

able to act as an equal member of the team with doctors, other nurses, healthprofessionals such as psychologists and physiotherapists, and architects andengineers.

She has had a wide range of responsibility this year.

Her unit provides the secretariat for the Mental Health Advisory Committee of theMinistry. This committee meets monthly and has a wide-ranging agenda. Twomatters merit special consideration.

There has been a series of investigations into hospitals and care centres where

services have fallen into scandal. There has been mistreatment of patients anddeep-seated abuse of responsibilities. Miss Florescu and her unit have beeninvolved in visits to those institutions of part of a larger team and have had tocome up with strategies for immediate and long term improvement. MissFlorescu’s job has been to take the administrative lead from the view point of theMinistry. She has had to draft position papers for the Ministry and liaise with thePress Office about the preparation of press releases. Most important, she hadhad to act as the coordinator for the plans to bring the hospitals and centres backon track, usually within their current budgets.

She has done the technical part of the job very well. The reports of the

investigations are very comprehensive and clear and firm action plans areattached to them. The reports have been able to draw together the differentinterests of the different health professionals very well. The single problem is thatthe recommendations all involve significant increases in expenditure, albeit toexpenditure directly impacting on patient care. Miss Florescu has not taken itvery well that recommendations have had to be rejected because of lack of funds. Much of her time is now spent lobbying the finance division for increasedallocations. She has also started lobbying the EU unit both in writing and directlyto cause them to pursue funding from their sources. She is an ardent lobbyist,but were it not for the merit of her cause, she is in danger of fast becoming a painin the neck.

The second of her responsibilities relating the Mental Health Advisory Committeehas been the working party on the role of psychologists in the mental health caresystem. This is a technical and controversial issue not so much in principle, as interms of practice. The universities are turning out psychologists at a quite a fastrate and, in professional terms, there is now a surfeit of them on the job market.But they have only general psychological skills. Few of them are genuinelyclinical psychologists – at least in the terms that would be understood in Western

73



Europe. The issue is whether to set up hospital and centre based trainingprogrammes that would enable a significant cadre of clinically trainedpsychologists to emerge say over the next 5 – 10 years. The more immediateissue is what these psychologists would do during the early part of their clinicaltraining and how they would be assimilated into the body of health care

professionals.

Miss Florescu has been able to contribute strongly to this work. Her paper on therole of reinforcement in the treatment of behavioural disorder has been taken asa seminal work on the topic. It draws in large part from her professionalbackground, but also from her experience of policy and personnel developmentin the Ministry. She has become, in effect, the driving force on this topic and her role is both more important and more widely based than could have beenexpected from another official of her standing.

Violence in hospitals, especially in accident and emergency units and in

psychiatric units has been increasing rapidly and in intensity over recent years. Ithas now reached epidemic proportions and is a major source of concern. In her role as secretary to the Mental Health Advisory Committee, Miss Florescu hasbegun an administrative initiative to assist. She has drawn together workinggroup of psychiatric and general nurses, together with emergency physicians andpsychiatrists. Together they are drawing up guidance aimed at dealing with theproblem. The first part of the guidance is about general measures to ensure staff safety. It also sets out the legal arrangements under which staff carry out their work and the responsibilities of their employers to ensure safe working conditionsand proper support for their actions. The second part of the guide is an agreedset of procedures for dealing with and subduing the violent patient. What

interventions can be approved and what restraint and other measures can bebrought to bear. The third part of the guide deals with physical and psychiatricconditions, including alcohol and drug abuse that might predispose to violence .This is a significant piece of work and it is already advanced to the stage that thedraft guidance is being considered in various parts of the Ministry and in selectedunits.

Miss Florescu has also been able to keep the flow of general work in her unitsteady. Her staff of three have been kept well loaded with work during the year and have generally been well supervised. Much of the work is concerned withinput to the planning of new services, hospital units and residential services. Thelatter involving contacts with other Ministries and with local authorities. If there isa fault, it is that too much of the work is being done from Ministry desks and notenough time is being spent in the field. But this has to be balanced with the timethat Miss Florescu herself spends out of the office – approximately 40% of her time.

74



Work has been taken in due time on the administrative definition of services to beprovided in modern psychiatric units in general hospitals. Three foreign visits, toFrance, Germany and Israel, each of four days duration have been undertakenby a broadly based team from the Ministry and personnel from Miss Florescu’s

unit were involved in setting up the arrangements, taking part in the visits andwriting up action reports. It is worth noting that the action coming from thosevisits has been more comprehensive and practical than that coming from visits toother types of health care facility in Western Europe.

Child psychiatry remains a matter for concern and not a great deal has beendone in the past year. Services for adults have been given priority. This is in partdue to a major programme on the upgrading of childrens’ homes. These arebeing developed through a joint programme between the Government of Romania and the European Union. The health, including mental health, servicesprovided to them are mainly being organised at a local level. The main concern is

that they are very variable in quality. Next year it will be important for MissFlorescu and her unit to extend their involvement in this work. The lessening of the load on the working party on the role of the psychologist and the completionof the guide on violence should allow room for it.

General administrative work has been tolerably well done. Miss Florescu is aperson who speaks bluntly and to the point and her written work is in the samecharacter. She is not the person to whom to look for polished administrativedrafts, but she has that skill available to her within her team. To her credit sheallows it rein. Her interventions are on points of substance rather than on pointsof presentation. Speeches and briefing generally come from within her team.

Her skills at handling data are quite limited. Part of her work involves assessingthe financial impact of different kinds of proposal. Her approach tends to rather simplistic. She considers things very much in terms of aggregate costs for aggregate services and often does not undertake the disggregation of datanecessary to cost the individual items of service provision, some of which mightbe better justified on their own terms.

So there have been pluses and minuses to her performance, and she has beenmuch assisted by an experienced and effective team. Her real strengths flowfrom her past experience. At present she is a well fitting cog. Put into another machine she might not cope so well, and time will inevitably bring challenges toher flexibility.

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Requirements

Based on this information, complete an annual appraisal report on Miss Florescu.

•Mark and comment upon the extent to which objectives set have been fulfilledand deduce an overall performance mark for this aspect of her work.



• Set a number of objectives for next year and assign performance measures to

them.

Ramboll ManagementPhare Project Friday, May 07, 2004

76



Public authority or institutionMinistry of HealthGeneral directorateHealth servicesDirectorate

HospitalsDepartmentMental Health UnitOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Chief of Office – Mental Health Services

Level of the job 1


Name Alicia FlorescuClass 1Professional degree (if any) B.Sc. Nursing. Registered General andMental Nurse

Main purpose of the job

Secretariat Mental Health Advisory Committee. Secretariat Committee on Role of Psychologists. Policies to curb violence in hospitals.


Specialised training None – public administration knowledge and healthservices knowledge


Computer operation/programming Word and Excel


Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Adaptable. Able to analyseand solve problems and implement solutions. Good strategic thinking.Able to work independently and as a member and leader of a team.Decision making. Able to delegate correctly. Good written and oralcommunication. Basic computer user skills.

77



Specific requirements (travelling, delegations, secondment)

None

Managerial competence (knowledge, qualities, aptitudes)Manage small team. Show adequate leadership, delegation and control.Able to appraise staff objectively and act as effective mentor. Able toorganise work, both of herself and her team, according to deadlines set.Effective at motivation.

Responsibilities Secretary of Standing Mental Health Advisory Committee.

Secretary of Working Group on the Role of Psychologists. Attends meetings.Provides advice. Takes minutes. Follows up or arranges follow up of actionpoints. Liaison with chairman and members. General policy work and relatedcasework in relation to mental health issues. Management and control of team.Liaison with other parts of Ministry as required. Member of hospitals directoratemanagement team.

Competence limits (decision freedom) Decision freedom consistent withsecretaryship of mental health advisory committee and sub committees. Decideswhen and where to seek advice on her own initiative. Competence to analyseand progress policy initiatives within limits specified in job objectives.

Competence to progress and dispose of casework on her own initiative. Liaiseswith other administrative and professional staff within the ministry, in healthauthorities and hospitals according to judgement. Seeks advice on her owninitiative. Able to manage and control assigned team on basis of their jobdescriptions and assigned goals. Acts as performance appraisal evaluator for controlled staff.

Delegation of responsibilities Able to delegate assignments and general workto her team in accordance with her own judgement, subject to their jobdescriptions and the goals set for them.

Relationships

Internal


78



Functional Mental health advisory committee and sub groups.Administrative and professional staff within the ministry. Staff of healthauthorities and hospitals.

Control Assigned team.

Representation Within Ministry of Health and subordinated agencies asmight be required by her superiors.

External

With public authorities and institutions As required by the generalduties of her post.

With international organisations As required by the general duties of her post. Some international travel is expected.

With private legal persons As required by the general duties of her post.

Drawn up by Notified to Job holder Endorsed byName…………… Name……………… Name………………Public office Signature………… Public office………Signature………. Date………………. Signature………….Date……………... Date………………...

79



CASE STUDY

MISS CARMINA ALBA

Personal Details

Date of Birth 14th January 1979Place of Birth Ploestii, RomaniaPlace of Residence 3 Boulevard Prague, BUCHARESTMarital status Single

Employment details

Current Employment Executant Civil ServantPost Expert in Public RelationsMinistry Ministry of Agriculture, BUCHAREST

Date of seniority in post 3

rd

January 2000

Qualifications

University Batchelor’s Degree (Honours) Media Studies (1999)Diploma Information processing for the media (2001)Computing Microsoft Word, Excel, Visio and Project

Languages Romanian – fluent spoken and written (native)English – spoken 5 written 3French - spoken 3, written 3

General Description

Miss Alba is an assured young lady.

She has no difficulty in expressing a point of view, though she is better face toface than when using writing. Her speech is brief and to the point and shemarshals facts and arguments well. She has no hesitation in pursuing her pointswith senior and junior officials alike, and she is also good with the StateSecretary with whom she deals on a weekly basis.

The same is not true in her face to face dealings with agricultural interests andwith trade unions. Here she expects them to have the same viewpoint andbackground knowledge as she does herself, and her superior has sometimeshad to step in to save the day. It is not that her message was wrong. Its deliverywas just not well focused.

Her written work is usually good. It is short and to the point. Sometimes readersare left to fill in gaps in arguments for themselves. But she sets material out well,

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making good use of typography and lay-out and includes schematics when that is justified. She is less good at drafting speeches. Whereas her press releases arevery clear, her draft speeches tend to be long winded and padded-out . There isoften more text than substance.

She is popular in the office, mainly because she is a hard worker and keen totake on more. No deadlines have been missed in her work (with a couple of exceptions) and she usually maintains a clear desk. Her enthusiasm isappreciated by her superiors, but sometimes they think she goes too far tooquickly and, if she is not careful, she can, as has happened, go beyond her strictterms of reference.

Most of her work is done via a computer and she has a very good practicalknowledge of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. The latter enables her toproduce graphs and diagrams, which she incorporates well into her writtendocuments. Her analysis of graphs and diagrams is less certain. She can

describe their content well enough, but she is not comfortable with the underlyingnumbers. This deficiency in number work extends to other parts of her job andher skills at basic arithmetic, including means and modes and percentages, couldstand improvement. This is important for that part of her job that deals with thedifferences year on year in various sectors of agricultural production.

During the year a debutant civil servant was assigned to her unit and she actedas his counselor. This task was done very well and the new employee haspassed through his six month probation period with more than satisfactory marks.

She has also over the past 12 months been acting as a member of a small task

group. It has five members all, except one, above Miss Alba’s level of rank andexperience. The exception was a new executant from a policy group. Theworking group was to consider general improvements in the flow of information incereal markets. It involved twice weekly meetings for 3 months, three two-dayvisits to different localities and the production of a report with recommendations.Miss Alba did all of this work very well. She acted as the main coordinator andsecretary of the group. The report produced was logically and accuratelyexpressed. The conclusions were clear and it has won support for implementation. That will be one of Miss Alba’s tasks for next year.

There have been a few comments in course of the year about Miss Alba’s work.She has been praised for her command of EU matters, especially thecomplicated Common Agricultural Policy. She has used this as a lens throughwhich to focus her general work and is now looked on as the public relations’department’s working level expert on these matters. She has made two trips toBrussels, both of them accompanying senior officials and Ministers. Theorganisation involved was significant and all the timetables and activity were met.She has a letter of praise from the Minister for this work. Her standard of Englishwas well up to the task.

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So, we have a civil servant doing well in key areas, but there is always room for improvement.

She has been an assiduous attender at training seminars run by consultants tothe Ministry whose main field of expertise is in agricultural policy and strategy,

and in industry finance and privatization. She has been able to lever attendanceat these seminars, through active participation, to the point at which she is seenas a key link person between the consultancy team and the Ministry; a role thathas been helped by her wide range of contacts in the Ministry through her presswork. Her work with the consultants has exposed her to a range of opportunitiesfor wining and dining, but she has not succumbed. She is seen by them asstraight die on whom they can rely for information and contacts, but her work withthem is strictly inside the Ministry. Her foresight in this approach can becommended.

Objectives for the year

Miss Alba had four objectives set for her in her appraisal report last year.

First, she was to improve daily dealings with the press and other media onagricultural interests. The success factor was to be the number of daily andweekly press contacts; the number of positive press reports on the Ministry’swork, especially on cereal production; and, a reduction in the time elapsingbetween a press enquiry and relevant information being provided to the

journalist.

All this has been done, though not, of course, by Miss Alba working alone – it has

been a team effort. The Ministry now has a positive flow of media interest incereal farming. There is a well established network of press contacts in theMinistry coordinated by Miss Alba – she is very well connected with all the primemovers in the Ministry. Succinct and accurate information has been provided ontime – her use of e-mail and the development of a new web-page, largely on her initiative, have been strong contributors.

Second, she was to improve the development of data based information andtabulations. This work was to take one year. There has been some achievementsin this regard, but there is more to be done. She has developed contacts with theMinistry’s statisticians, but has not moved beyond the packaging of the data thatthey have been able to provide. As a result, the main source of statisticalinformation available to the press is aggregate data in annual and periodicreports. Miss Alba is scheduled to undertake a course on the analysis andpresentation of statistical data, in 2005; that might give her the tools to better onthis aspect of her work.

Third, she was to improve her relationships at a horizontal level within theMinistry. This was to be evidenced by a much more team based approach and by

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Miss Alba assuming a lead role among her peers. This has been a success. Her hard work has been much appreciated by her colleagues and has placed her in alead position on important aspects of the work. Her collaboration with consultantshas also been fruitful – they look to her as one of their main day to day links withthe larger body of the Ministry. Next year this might be formalised and she will be

given a formal role within the project management structure – probably as anassistant project liaison officer. That will expose her not just to the managementof the project work, but to the management of its timescales and finances.

Third, she was to be an effective counselor to the new debutant civil servant.Here, there has been considerable success. The debutant was introduced instages to a wide range of work. Targets were set for him that could be fulfilled,but only with effort and with the assistance of team work. Work programmeswere developed that used his emerging experience well and he is now a fullyeffective member of the press office team.

Requirement

Based on this information, complete an annual appraisal report on Miss Alba.

• Mark and comment on the extent to which objectives have been fulfilled anddeduce an overall performance mark for this aspect of her work;

• Mark and comment on individual aspects of her performance as required bythe report form, and deduce an overall mark;

• Write an overall commentary on her performance this year;

• Make recommendations for further training, if necessary;


Ramboll Management

Phare Project Wednesday, June 09, 2004

83



Public authority or institutionMinistry of AgricultureGeneral directorateCommon ServicesDirectorate

CommunicationsDepartmentPress OfficeOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Expert Public Relations

Level of the job Executant (Specialist)


Name Carmina AlbaClass 1Professional degree (if any) BA (Honours) Media Studies. DiplomaInformation Processing for the Media. End user certificate – MicrosoftWord, Excel, Visio and Project.

Main purpose of the job Provision of externally focused communicationservices. Provides information related to crop production to the media. Preparesand circulates digests of information internally and externally. Drafts articles,speeches and general briefing material. Participates in ad hoc working groups.


Specialised training None required.

Advanced training None required.

Computer operation/programming End user computing – Microsoft. E-mail and web usage.

Foreign languages None required.

Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Analysis, synthesis anddrafting. Work to close deadlines. Adaptable. Responsible. Problemsolving and solution implementation. Marked facility with language -

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Drawn up by Notified to Job holder Endorsed byName…………… Name……………… Name………………Public office Signature………… Public office………Signature………. Date………………. Signature………….

Date……………... Date………………...

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CASE STUDY

MR. BOGDAN DIMITRIU

Personal details

Date of birth 12th April 1954Date of seniority 1st January1999Marital Status MarriedHome 14 Odessa Street, BUCHAREST

Employment details

Position held Chief of OfficeMinistry of FinanceContracts Unit

Previous experience 1996 – 1999 Chief of OfficeMinistry of Labour Employment Services

1990 – 1996 Executant/ExpertMinistry of FinancePublic Sector Finance

1980 – 1990 Cluj Local AuthorityHead of Financial Services

Education

University Batchelor of Arts (Honours) EconomicsMaster of Arts Public Administration

Languages Romanian – fluent written and spoken (native)English – written 4, spoken 4.French – written 3,spoken 4.

History

Mr. Dimitriu is not happy in his present post and has been seeking a change for the past eighteen months. Most of the work is casework in relation toadministering the contracts for foreign contractors carrying out contracts inRomania. The contracts vary in length from a few months to a number of years.They are mainly contracts let by the European Union or by the World Bank, butquite a number are contracts directly with the Romanian Government.

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Mr. Dimitriu’s unit of 12 staff are mainly accountants and most of them are in their late twenties or early thirties. All but three of them are women. He is very much ahands on manager. He allows his staff very little leeway and there have beencomplaints to other managers that he interferes too much. His performanceappraisals are rigorous and the majority of his staff have been rated in the good

category. Three have been rated as only ‘satisfactory’, probably justifiably, andthree have been placed in the ‘very good’ category. Staff turnover is significant –about three people have left during each year of Mr. Dimitriu’s tenure andexperience levels are generally quite low. It is mainly the more experienced staff who have left.

There are various phases to the work of Mr. Dimitriu’s unit.

First, they get involved in the development of terms of reference for projects. Thiswork has to be done speedily and accurately. Speed in necessary to ensure thatterms of reference are ready for issue according to financial timetables set by the

donor organisations. Accuracy is essential because the terms of referencegovern the whole content of the eventual contracts. Much discussion andnegotiation is necessary with beneficiary ministries on the one hand andrepresentatives of the donor organisations on the other. Mr. Dimitriu does thiswork in a satisfactory manner. He takes the lead in the major parts of thenegotiations, supported by members of his staff. He has a good feel for the intentof programmes and is able to relate one to another well. He works comfortably inEnglish and, to a lesser extent, in French. He drafts well. There is seldom anyambiguity and he has the experience to formulate the reference terms precisely.

The second part of the work relates to the tendering procedure and to the letting

of contracts through a contracts panel. Mr. Dimitriu knows the procedures verywell indeed and he is punctilious in ensuring that they are followed to the letter.He also ensures that they are followed exactly by his staff. His direct concern iswith the financial proposals that are made, but these link closely to the technicalproposals. Mr. Dimitriu is a shrewd judge of what is being presented and verygood at spotting areas in which proposals are soft or misleading. He carries outcareful analyses, using his staff well, and comes to contract panels very wellprepared. His performance at the actual panel can be sometimes problematic.He tends to dominate discussions and will pursue even small points to the bitter end. As a result he is sometimes seen as a bete noir by those who havetendered, and he can exasperate his colleagues.

The third main part of the work is monitoring contracts over their lifespan.Ensuring that expenditures are properly vouchered before disbursements aremade, ensuring that the payment schedule is in accordance with estimates anddealing with requests for amendments or extensions to contracts. This is largelythe bread and butter work of the unit, but it has to be done carefully and correctly.The latter part of the work, especially, can be quite sensitive, the more so if theamendments requested are not trivial. It often involves dealing with senior staff in

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the beneficiary ministries and, of course, the contractors are heavily involved,again usually at a senior level. Much of the work is done by Mr. Dimitriu’s staff,but they frequently ask him for guidance and support. Overall, the work is donevery well. A number of audits of this aspect of the work have been carried outand they have all been satisfactory. Very few enquiries were raised and those

that were received speedy and satisfactory answers. The main problem in thisarea of work is that Mr. Dimitriu needs to learn to trust to the judgement of hisstaff rather more. As already said, he is very hands on. He gets very involved inmatters of detail. As a result, he sometimes loses sight of the larger picture.

Mr. Dimitriu’s relationships with his peers are not particularly congenial. He tendsto stick to his own affairs and does not involve himself in the wider affairs of theMinistry unless he has to. He is an infrequent contributor to managementmeetings and avoids them if he can.

Because of the high profile of some of the contracts with which he deals he has

quite frequent contacts with State Secretaries and sometimes Ministers. Theysee him as a very able technician, but as rather clinical and as something of acold fish.

Over the past year he has been involved in a number of conferences promotedby donor agencies. He has acquitted himself well. His contributions have beensound and very expert, and he is a good public speaker. He is less good atsmaller events, seminars, round table discussions and the like, where he tends todominate and to overwhelm.

Mr. Dimitriu’s unit is completely computerised and uses Microsoft Word and

Microsoft Excel. Mr. Dimitriu is adept in both programmes and particularly inExcel. If there is a criticism to be made it is that he does too much himself – evento the extent of processing data received by members of his staff.

During the year Mr. Dimitriu had the following objectives.

• To deal satisfactorily and timeously with the development of project terms of reference. All work received to be cleared within 6 weeks. This has beendone to a high standard, but more could have been accomplished by Mr.Dimitriu’s staff.

• To improve the content and manner of his involvement in contract panels and

to reduce his involvement in panels to 40% of those arranged, by the year end.. There have been no complaints, but Mr. Dimitriu continues to givepoints of substance and points of detail too equal a weight. His staff havebeen virtually excluded from contract panels. Mr. Dimitriu reserves all but ahandful of small contracts to himself.

• To improve delegation of work to his staff. Delegation of case related work tobe achieved to 80% level within 3 months. There has been no real

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improvement here. His staff are kept very busy, but it is mainly on supportwork. Another three staff have left this year which is worrying.

• To improve relationships with donor organisations and with contractorsimmediately and to maintain these standards. The first has been achievedsatisfactorily. Mr. Dimitriu has shown himself to be more open to suggestion

and more flexible. As regards contractors, he still presents himself very muchas the guardian of the public purse. The contractors find him very procedurebound and a bit nit picking. On the other hand they admire him for his probityand ethics.

Requirement

Based on this information, complete an annual appraisal report on Mr. Dimitriu.

• Mark and comment upon the extent to which objectives have been fulfilledand deduce an overall performance mark for this aspect of his work.





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Public authority or institutionMinistry of FinanceGeneral directorateFinancial ServicesDirectorate

Contracting and SuppliesDepartmentContracts UnitOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Contracts approval and monitoring

Level of the job Chief of Office


Name Bogdan DimitriuClass 1`Professional degree (if any) BA (Honours) Economics, MA PublicAdministration

Main purpose of the job Letting and administration of service and other

contracts for foreign contractors to the Romanian public service.


Specialised training None. General knowledge of contracts work


Computer operation/programming Micro computer Word and Excel

Foreign languages None required, but English and French useful.

Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Adaptability. Ability toassume responsibility and problem solve. Able to implement solutions.Analysis. Planning. Communication. Drafting. Decision making.Independence. Negotiation and mediation. Team member and teammanager. Basic PC skills.

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Specific requirements (travelling, delegations, secondment)Occasional foreign travel may be required.

Managerial competence (knowledge, qualities, aptitudes)Leadership, mentoring, communication. Delegation and control.Performance appraisal including interviewing.

Responsibilities Letting and administration of contracts for services andsupplies to the Romanian public service by foreign suppliers. Participation informulating terms of reference. Setting up and participating in contract boards.Analysing and formulating proposals regarding technical and financial proposals

by contractors. Dealing with requests for contract amendment or extension.Liaison with foreign donor agencies. Day to day administration of contractsincluding monitoring and payment. Managing assigned team. Participating inbroader management of Directorate.

Competence limits (decision freedom) Able to act on own initiative regardingall matters within sphere of responsibilities. Contracting authority limited to Euro1 million or equivalent for any single contract

Delegation of responsibilities Able to delegate to team at personal discretionsubject to the content of job descriptions.

Relationships

Internal


Functional General financial policy and general policy directorates andpersonnel directorate.

Control Assigned work team only.

Representation Within Ministry as required by responsibilities.

External

With public authorities and institutions All public authorities affected or potentially affected by contracts or contract procedures.

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CASE STUDY

MR. DANIEL TEODORESCU

Personal details

Date of birth 3rd April 1962Date of seniority 1st January 1997Marital status DivorcedHome Flat 14 – 167 Stefan Cel Mare, BUCHAREST

Employment details

Position held Chief of Office - Legal ServicesMinistry Ministry of Industry and Commerce

Privatisation Unit

Previous experience

Other jobs 1992- 1997 Executant – Legal ExpertMinistry of TransportConsumer Rights

1990 – 1992 Executant – Legal ExpertMinistry of Industry and CommerceFinancial Services

1985 -1990 Press Officer Chamber of Commerce, Constanta

Education

University Master of Law – University TimosoaraBachelor of Law – Private University,Bucharest

Languages Romanian – fluent written and spoken (native)English – written 4, spoken 4French – written 3, spoken 4

History

Mr. Teodorescu is currently working on primary and secondary legislation aimedat the eventual privatisation of the electricity generating system in Romania. Hisresponsibilities are mainly related to thermal power systems and to the electricity

94



grid, but he must also take into account current and planned nuclear generation.A good part of his work relates to commercial contracts between the generatorsand the coal, oil and gas industries.

However, this year he has had to extend his range into property rights and

conveyancing. There have been shortages in the Ministry’s legal unit dealing withproperty transfer and, since a there is high commercial asset value in propertywithin the generating system and more especially in the grid system, with itsextensive use of way-leaves. It has been appropriate for him to become involved.

On the privatisation side he has had these main tasks.

Generators will not be privatized all at once. A number of stations will remain partof the nationalized industry. But new generators are expected to be moreefficient. Most of them will over the next 10 years will be new-build stations. Theywill operate combined cycle gas turbines. They will be able to come on line very

quickly in response to demand and they will command premium payments per megawatt hour supplied.

If they are to meet their full economic potential they will need priority access tothe grid system. But that is currently at or near saturation. A system of gridaccess pricing needs therefore to be developed; and it needs to be brought intoeffect over the next year.

Mr. Teodorescu has two staff working mainly on this issue. His personalresponsibilities are to achieve draft changes to the primary legislation regulatingelectricity supply contracts and to determine the need for and the content of

supporting secondary legislation. This is a complicated legal task, but it alsodepends on being able to understand the technicalities of electricity supply. Mr.Teodorescu acts as the main reference point for the electrical and other engineers working on the issue. He also links with the energy economists unitwithin the Ministry and with energy policy colleagues.

We are at the stage of understanding the problems and what is needed toresolve them. We have legal position papers on the two types of legislation. Wehave legal analysis of the policy and economic papers. We have sketches of thechanges needed to primary legislation and quite detailed indexes of what is to goin secondary legislation. But, as yet, we have no draft law. This is a matter of concern. The timetable for this work is linked to EU accession and it has to becompleted and operational in 1996. As things stand, it will be difficult to get thework completed in less than 6 months.

The second issue on which he is working is arrangements for the plannedmaintenance of power stations.

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Station down time is very sensitive politically and, of course, highly unpopular with consumers. The main reason for down time is that whole stations have to betaken off-generation. This can happen in a planned way: stations plan periodicmaintenance of boilers and generators. To do this they need access toequipment that is shared between stations. Examples are heavy lifting gear and

transporters. But often maintenance is not planned. It happens through randombreakdown. When that occurs the stations affected need maintenance equipmentin a hurry and, most often, they have to get all or some of it from other generatorsor from the grid system.

A working party has been set up within the Ministry to set out better arrangements for the sharing of necessary maintenance equipment. Mr.Teodorescu is the legal representative. The primary output from the workingparty will be secondary legislation that puts maintenance equipment into acommon pool from which stations can draw. But it is not quite as simple as that.The equipment needed might already be in use at another station, either

because of planned maintenance or because the station is dealing with anunplanned outage. A system of priorities therefore needs to be identified andcodified in order to ensure that equipment is first used where it will be to bestadvantage.

The working group has been a disappointment. It has been dominated by theengineers. The main recommendations so far are that the supply of maintenanceequipment should be increased significantly. Hardly a practical proposition. Theequipment is very complex and very expensive. Much of the time it sits waitingfor something to happen. And it sits in the place where it was last used.

Mr. Teodorescu has so far taken a passive role in all this. He has documentedthe various views and objections. He has drawn up rules of ownership, but not of use. He has drawn up a highly complex hierarchy of need in which prioritybetween stations is computed according to their flexibility – are they combinedcycle stations able to come on and off line quickly – and their contribution tomeeting base load. On that criterion, the nuclear station, which is essentially abase load station scores most highly, but it is also the station with least need:most of its equipment is specialized to its need and it is seldom off line becauseof non-nuclear related problems.

Mr. Teodorescu really needs to start to make things happen on this issue.

Third, he has been dealing with the issue of the shared European transmissionsystem and access to the Romanian grid by foreign generators. This has movedon satisfactorily. Mr. Teodorescu has a very good knowledge of the Romanianpower system. He understand well the limits and capacities of our generators. Heunderstands the capacity of the transmission system. Importantly, he has a goodgrasp of when base load can be acquired from foreign sources and howaggregate demand needs to be managed through supply contracts. He is also a

96



tough and assured negotiator. As a result we now have letters of understanding,signed at Ministerial level, between ourselves and foreign suppliers. Work is welladvanced on the necessary bilateral and multi-lateral agreements. And the actualsupply (and penalty) contracts are mostly fully drafted and ready for signature. Allthis is due in no small part to Mr. Teodorescu’s efforts and to those of his team,

and they deserve the credit.

Fourth, Mr. Teodorescu has been dealing with preliminary work on potentialproperty transfers. This is painstaking and time consuming work and he and histeam have managed a great deal of the spadework in a short space of time. Aninventory has been drawn up of all major property holdings, leases and way-leaves. Visits have been made (mainly by his team) to sites in dispute and theland property researches have been carried out to establish title. This work hasled us into an area of difficulty. It turns out that a lot of our way-leaves exist onlyby grace and custom. Work now needs to be done on their valuation as indeeddoes work on the valuation of some generation and switching station sites. The

valuations will be carried out by a land valuation company on contract, but it willbe for Mr. Teodorescu to draw up and monitor the contract performance.

Fifth, Mr. Teodorescu has managed a team of four executant/expert staff plus adebutant lawyer. This has been done to a good standard. He is a goodcommunicator with considerable interest in the subjects with which he deals andhe has managed to convey this enthusiasm to his team. There have been manyfield trips, a lot of them involving out of hours travel. They have all been doneuncomplainingly.

Mr. Teodorescu’s unit was equipped with new computers this year and now

everybody in his unit has web and e-mail access and the use of the MicrosoftOffice Suite. This has given rise to a significant increase in the throughput of work – mainly this has been accomplished by the sharing of documentation. Thedebutant has mainly worked as an assistant directly to Mr. Teodorescu who is hisformal counselor. This arrangement has worked out very satisfactorily. Thedebutant has a real grasp of the whole range of the work being carried out in theunit and there is little doubt that his probation marking will be other than veryfavourable. As an experiment, an electrical engineer has been nominated to workwith Mr. Teodorescu and, in fact, he spends most of his time in the legal unitdealing with the two issues of supply of maintenance equipment and thedevelopment of bilateral supply agreements. He and Mr. Teodorescu get on verywell together and derive a good deal of synergy from each other’s presence. Thearrangement should be continued next year.

Mr. Teodorescu is nominally a strong team player. His staff work willingly andwell for him. He has built good links in other parts of the Ministry, especially withengineers and administrators. Generally he is seen as competent, diligent andhard-working. His enthusiasm for his work comes across well to others and he isseen as having considerable expertise in his field. He does not always work well

97



upwards. He is very independently minded and will rely on his own initiatives andpriorities through thick and thin. He does not always keep his seniors informed of what is being done and about what his personal timetable might be. The result isthat his work priorities become skewed. What he likes, he does well, what hedoes not like can drift.

His administrative skills are competent. He can reduce sometimes verycomplicated technical issues down to their essentials. He is good at meetings,generally an active listener and a strong contributor. He is not particularlynumerate. He is more at home with descriptions than with data.

His marked strengths are his commitment and his highly ethical approach. Whilenot a man to hide his light under a bushel, he is not a man who takes advantageof his position.

Objectives

Mr. Teodorescu had the following objectives.

First, to develop work on privatisation to the extent that final drafts of sections of primary legislation relevant and the entirety of the secondary legislation wereready by the year end. We are some way short of that and it will needaccelerated effort to get texts ready by the middle of next year – the practicaldeadline

Second, arrangements were to be drawn up by the year end, including draftsecondary legislation, to provide for the best sharing of heavy maintenance

equipment between potential users. Twelve meetings of a working group havebeen held. Mr. Teodorescu has attended all of them. The difficulties are now fullyclarified in an engineering sense – as indeed was mainly the case at the outset.A better community of interest has been developed, but there is no realagreement on sharing and no draft of secondary legislation.

Third, the development of a bilateral system for grid access by foreign generatorsto be examined and analysed in time for implementation by 1997. Expectationshave been exceeded here. Not only have the framework agreements beenreached, they have been enshrined in letters of intent. The drafting of bilateralagreements is well on course.

Fourth, (new objective inserted at the end of the first quarter of the year) aninventory was to be made of transmission property rights and site rights for thegrid and generator system. This has been accomplished to a significant extentand the next stage will be the valuation of rights, under the terms of a commercialcontract which Mr. Teodorescu will administer.

98



Fifth, there was to be effective management of the debutant lawyer and theelectrical engineer attached to the legal unit. Both have been accomplished. Wewill seek to assign another debutant to Mr. Teodorescu’s group next year.

Requirement

Based on this information, complete an annual appraisal report on Mr.Teodorescu.

• Mark and comment upon the extent to which objectives set have been fulfilledand deduce an overall performance mark for this aspect of his work.

• Mark and comment on individual aspects of his performance as required bythe report form, and deduce an overall report mark. Assume priorities for individual aspects of performance according to the information you have beengiven.



Ramboll ManagementPhare Project Thursday, June 10, 2004

99



Public authority or institutionMinistry of Industry and CommerceGeneral directorateIndustry Support and RegulationDirectorate

Electricity IndustryDepartmentPrivatisation UnitOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Chief of Office – Legal Services

Level of the job Chief of Office 1


Name Daniel TeodorescuClass 1Professional degree (if any) Master of Law. Batchelor of Law.

Main purpose of the job The development of primary and secondary legislationrelevant to electricity generation and distribution and its privatisation.

Development and implementation of international electricity supply contracts.Legal work in relation to assets, land and property connected with the electricityindustry. General legal work related to electricity generation and transmission.


Specialised training None apart from legal qualification


Computer operation/programming Microsoft Word and Excel, e-mail

and web.

Foreign languages None required, but English and French useful.

Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Objectives oriented. Able toanalyse and synthesise complex issues on own initiative, resolveproblems and implement solutions. Forward work planning andmanagement of work timetables. Written and oral communication. Lead

100



and work within team. Able to organise and control work and to makedecisions. Performance appraisal and interviewing. Use of computer for word processing and spreadsheet work. High level of probity and ethics.


Frequent travel within Romania. Occasional travel abroad.

Managerial competence (knowledge, qualities, aptitudes)Manage work team. Requires leadership, planning, control, coordinationand decision making. Responsible for personnel appraisal andinterviewing. Implicit mediation and negotiation.

Responsibilities Preparation of draft primary and secondary legislationregarding the regulation of electricity generation and distribution and itsprivatisation. Legal work to support the effective and efficient operation of electricity supply and distribution. Legal work to develop and implement electricity

supply contracts with foreign generators. Work to support the generalresponsibilities of the electricity directorate. Work concerning the acquisition andcontrol of assets and the holding and transfer of land and other real property.Management of an assigned team of lawyers and other staff. Use of computer systems. Travel to sites and otherwise as required, including foreign travel.

Competence limits (decision freedom) Determine work priorities withdelegated limits. Decisions of day to day work as required. Seek advice andguidance on own initiative.

Delegation of responsibilities Delegates work to team on own initiative within

the limits of their job descriptions.

Relationships

Internal


Functional With ministry professional and administrative staff as requiredon any matter within responsibilities.

Control Of designated work team. Use of ministry common services asneeded by the work.

Representation As may be assigned from time to time.

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External

With public authorities and institutions As required in relation toresponsibilities

With international organisations As required in relation toresponsibilities. Specifically required in relation to foreign suppliers to theRomanian grid, their agents and associates. Links with internationalelectricity supply organisations as required.

With private legal persons As required by responsibilities and as may beassigned.


102



member of specialist language institutes. And she makes the most of her opportunities to move in the circle of the EU and other missions in Bucharest.

Her main problem is that, while she has the attendant skills to work well as alegal expert, her day to day skills do not quite meet the full job specification.

It would be easy to concentrate on her good points; there are very many. She ishighly tuned to situations and people. As a result she scarcely puts a foot wrongin her dealings with colleagues and her opposite numbers. She is one of thepeople most able to attend meetings and gain the best of information from them.She has a fund of examples of the inner workings of the EU bureaucracy. Sheuses those to best effect when setting out proposals and gathering in counter proposals. She has ready intelligence and comes back with many ideas for action from her work outside the Ministry. The difficulty is just that. They are goodideas (most of them) for action. But she needs someone to bring them into effect.Most often this is her colleagues. However, willing they are, this is not always

possible and Mrs. Mirceau’s pending file spills over her desk, while she movesforth bringing in, almost daily, new nuggets of work.

She does score very highly with those at Ambassador rank and with Ministersand dignitaries. She can, and does, produce very good briefing. It is elegantalmost to a fault. But it is rather too full of what might be possible rather thanwhat has actually been achieved. Ideally, she should occupy a grade severalsteps above her present one, in which she could dispose of the efforts of resources. That could well be her saving, but it is unlikely to happen at least for the present.

She has been a frequent foreign traveler on the Ministry’s business. Organisingand participating in study tours is her forte. She has undertaken these this year toGermany (Bonn and Berlin), to Belgium (Brussels), to the OECD in Paris, toEdinburgh, Dublin and London. The success of these trips has been largely dueto the work put in by Mrs. Mirceau beforehand. She reads avidly: scarcely aneconomic, legal or political journal passes her by. She is also a frequent andserious user of the Ministry’s library, which has expanded in some importantareas due largely to her interests and requests; often made on behalf of senior officials and Ministers.

Mrs. Mirceau is very close to the press office, to the private offices of Ministersand others. This has led her to move into new territories in the past year. Shehas started to produce and edit an index of work anticipated or in progress by thelegal department. This is being done using text retrieval software based on theLex legal index. But it is supplemented by Mrs. Mirceau’s own efforts usingMicrosoft Word and Microsoft Excel, for both of which she is an expert user. Shealso uses her e-mail system to draw in initiatives being taken that are relevant toRomanian law by the various embassies and missions. All this material is madeeasily available and is much appreciated by the Ministers and dignitaries who

104



could then be taken to support or amend these intentions based on the currentand planned state of development of secondary legislation in Romania. Theintelligence has certainly been gathered. It has been summarised and parceledfor action. It has been adequate follow-up that has principally been lacking.

Second, to use her experience and contacts to plan and carry out a number of study tours to EU countries, involving dignitaries and senior officials. To ensurethat the tours focused on the various development of secondary (and primary)legislation in those countries, and was placed in the context of developingRomanian legislation. Four tours, involving visits to seven centres, have beencarried out. This has ensured that the Romanian perspective has been givenhigh visibility. Most of the work in organising and carrying out the tours fell to Mrs.Mirceau and she coped admirably, both with action on the ground and indocumenting follow-up..

Third, to raise the profile of the work done by the EU related legislation

department of the Ministry both within it and in linked organisations beyond it.Here again Mrs. Mirceau has performed very well. Her information initiativeshave ensured that all who need to know are fully aware of developments, almostas they are happening.

Fourth, to translate intelligence gathered into well-formed initiatives for implementation. This is the weak point in the armoury of Mrs. Mirceau. Much hasbeen identified for action. Too often it has been left to others who have differentroles.

Requirement

Based on this information, complete an annual appraisal report on Mrs. Mirceau.

• Mark and comment upon the extent to which objectives have been fulfilledand deduce an overall performance mark for this aspect of her work.


•

Write an overall commentary on performance this year.



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Public authority or institutionMinistry of Foreign AffairsGeneral directorateEuropean AffairsDirectorate

EU AffairsDepartmentEU RelationsOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Legal Expert

Level of the job Executant


Name Evangeline MirceauClass 1Professional degree (if any) BA Modern Languages. MPhil InternationalRelations. Translation Diploma

Main purpose of the job Analysis of legal issues regarding Romania’s relations

with the EU. Maintaining working level contact with EU authorities, Embassiesand High Commissions in Romania on legal matters. Organising andparticipating in Romanian delegations to EU countries. Information gathering andanalysis of EU relevant legal matters.


Specialised training None

Advanced training None apart from law degree.

Computer operation/programming Microsoft Word and Excel. Lexsystem.

Foreign languages None required, but English, German and Frenchuseful.

Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Adaptability. Working onown initiative. Analysis and synthesis. Communication – written and oral.

107



Problem solving and implementation. Team working. Negotiating.Organising. Word processing and spreadsheet skills and use of legaldatabase. High level of probity and ethics.


Frequent foreign travel mainly to EU countries. Travel within Romania.Organisation of and participation in delegations.

Managerial competence (knowledge, qualities, aptitudes)Not appropriate – no staff managed.

Responsibilities Maintaining and developing relationships on legal matters withEU authorities and with embassies and high commissions. Preparing reports oncontacts, analysing, proposing and implementing action after authorisation.Organising and participating in study tours and delegations, recording action andinitiating and completing follow up action. Preparing reports, submissions and

ancillary briefing and speech material regarding EU legal issues. Participating inseminars and conferences as required. Using PC based Word, Excel and Lexsoftware. Working as a member of the general legal team.

Competence limits (decision freedom) Organise own work subject to generalsupervision. Decisions of any significant action involving outside agents requireapproval.

Delegation of responsibilities None

Relationships

Internal


Functional Within legal directorate and wider within Ministry

Control None – no staff managed

Representation General representation of legal directorate as required

External

With public authorities and institutions With these bodies as requiredby the work.

With international organisations Extensive with EU authoritiesembassies and high commissions. With foreign governments, viaRomanian embassies, mainly but not exclusively regarding study tours

108



CASE STUDY

MR. DAN MITROI

Personal details

Date of birth 18th September 1949Date of Seniority 1st January1999Marital status MarriedHome 10 Prague Street, BUCHAREST

Employment details

Position held Deputy Secretary GeneralMinistry Ministry of Administration

Previous experience

Other jobs 1990-1999 Director GeneralMinistry of Justice

1980-1990 Director GeneralMinistry of Finance

1965-1980 Various PostsMinistry of Commerce

Education

University Batchelor of Arts MathematicsPhD Philosophy

Languages Romanian – written 5, spoken 5 (native)English – written 5, spoken 5German – written 5, spoken 5

History

Mr. Mitroi is a quietly spoken, rather patrician man. His hobbies are in the arts.He is a very good amateur painter, in watercolours, and he is a patron of thenational orchestra and of the opera. He is also a fine calligrapher.

Since he has taken up his post there has been constant change. The civil serviceof Romania is evolving fast to meet many new challenges. Candidacy for theEuropean Union has meant that almost the entire bureaucracy has had tochange. New ministries have been created and others have been merged. Therehas been a strong push towards decentralisation. There have been problems of

110



recruiting and retaining civil servants because of low salaries and generally badworking conditions. There have been almost continuous negotiations, not justwith the EU, but with the World Bank and with the IMF. Legislation has never been more voluminous and there have been numerous emergency ordinancesand decisions. Almost all of this, to a larger or smaller extent, has involved Mr.

Mitroi personally. His work load is very high and very onerous.

It is a tribute to his personality and skills that matters generally have been kepton an even keel. He is adept at balancing the different demands of his portfolio.Much of his work is done direct to State Secretaries and, even more often, toMinisters. All of them hold him in high regard. He drafts very concisely,accurately and at high speed. He is excellent at analysing and playing briefingmaterial. He is an excellent chairman of meetings, able to cut through chaff andexpose points and positions very accurately, summarise them and draw outconsensus.

He works very long hours and, if there is a fault, it is that he takes on too much.He has not taken the opportunity of general reorganization to reorganize andexpand his own staff. The result is that those who work directly for him are ashard pressed and as overworked as he is himself. This has not led to anycomplaints because of the high intrinsic interest and importance of the work, butit has not been the most efficient of arrangements.

During the year the following main work has been done.

A major recodification of the law relating to the civil service has been achieved.All the individual legislation has been drawn into a single up to date law. The

opportunity has been taken to get rid of inconsistencies and overlaps and overallthe law now meets the requirements of the European Union for a modern civilservice statute. A number of major provisions, for example those related to anti-corruption and ethics have still to be brought into full effect and this will be animportant task in the coming year.

Significant action has been taken to redistribute functions from centraldepartments to non-governmental organisations and to local authorities. This hasinvolved protracted and difficult negotiations with all the interests involved,particularly over the delegation and future control of budgets. It has also involvedthe preparation and enactment of complex legislation. Mr. Mitroi has acted as thefocal point and the leader for all of this work.

A new scheme has been developed, legislated for an implemented which willmean the recruitment of up to 100 fast stream civil servants into the Romaniancivil service each year. Over a few years, this is expected to have a profoundeffect on the character and functioning of the civil service. Some difficult technicalproblems have had to be overcome. Again, Mr. Mitroi has been at the forefront of this initiative and it is very much his scheme.

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Over the past year there have been a number of very difficult negotiations withthe European Union both in Bucharest and in Brussels and Strasbourg. Theroad to accession is proving rocky. A great deal of attention has been focused onimproving the functioning of the Romanian civil service and fundamental changesare having to be introduced. The most important of these relates to improved

standards of service to the public, where significant steps forward have to bemade; to anti-corruption measures, where there has recently been a highlycritical report by the World Bank; and to much extended decentralisation. Theseare specific issues aside from a general requirement to improve the status andfunctioning of the civil service and to improve its pay and conditions under difficult economic circumstances. Major progress has been made to the extentthat new legislation is now in place – the omnibus civil service legislation is thelargest stride forward – but full implementation remains to be achieved. This isnow being pressed for strongly by the EU authorities.

Mr. Mitroi has been an effective lead negotiator. He has not been able to secure

a reduction in the content of demands, but he has been able to securereasonable time for implementation – two years. Part of the negotiatedprogramme is the promulgation of three major Phare projects directed towardsimplementation. All of them have to be up and running within the first six monthsof next year and each will run for twelve months. However, the timetable isalready slipping and it seems likely that only one project will be in place beforeJune. The best estimate for the others is the autumn. Mr. Mitroi has decided thatall the projects will be run from the Ministry of Administration. This will place alarge burden on the Ministry’s resources. With hindsight, it might have beenbetter to attach two of the projects to other agencies.

Mr. Mitroi does a great deal of public speaking, mainly to national andinternational conferences, for which he is considerable demand. This done well.He always has full command of his material and he speaks with authority. Theonly point of criticism is that he can gloss over difficulties. He is a considerableoptimist and tends to believe that things can be moved faster forward than will bethe case in practice.

Mr. Mitroi gets on reasonably well with his colleagues. They admire him rather than like him. He is a man very conscious of his position as a leader and as aman at the centre of affairs. He is not a man to suffer fools gladly and he hasturned a sardonic tongue on a few in his time. He tends to build a high degree of loyalty and respect in his team, but it is not always easy to make the grade.Those who do not, very soon find that they are given opportunities elsewhere.

Mr. Mitroi’s specific objectives for this year were the following.

• Participate, without involving any delay, in negotiations with the EU, WorldBank and EU authorities concerning the improved functioning of the civilservice, civil service pay and conditions, and specifically anti-corruption

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measures. All of this has been progressed well and some solid achievementshave been made. Mr. Mitroi has both acted as a lead negotiator and as adirect support to Ministers. Clear action points have been produced for implementation, but the timetable set by Mr. Mitroi has been criticized bysome of his colleagues as too optimistic and too ambitious.

• Achieve recodification of the general civil service law ready for Parliamentaryapproval by mid-June. Secure framework provisions regarding anti-corruptionand ethics. Prepare draft secondary legislation on these topics for ministerialapproval before end-September. This was achieved. The codification wasachieved one month early. Implementation action for the anti-corruptionlegislation and the ethics legislation needs to be taken quickly; it has slippedby about 2 months and the EU authorities are impatient.

• Design and achieve proposals for maximum decentralisation of powers tonon-governmental organisations and to local authorities. Achieve positive

results by end-September. Solid progress has been made, but more needs tobe done. Negotiations have been protracted and this has delayed some of theprimary legislation and a lot of the secondary legislation. The outstandingsecondary legislation now needs to be advanced. That will require further negotiations. Implementation plans need to be developed and brought into fulleffect.

• Legislation for the fast-stream civil servants scheme to be developed anddrafter by October and the scheme brought into operation by 1 st January. Thishas been fully achieved and the scheme is now fully ready to go operational.Next year it will be necessary to introduce monitoring arrangements.

Requirement

Based on this information,

• complete a report by Mr. Mitroi on his activities this year

• Acting the role of a member of the appraisal commission,

• Mark and comment upon the extent to which objectives have been fulfilledand deduce an overall performance mark for this aspect of his work.



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External

With public authorities and institutions Extensive across the whole of the public service.

With international organisations Extensive. Main international contactsare EU, World Bank, IMF and OECD. Other contacts are made asrequired. Extensive contacts with other countries both in the EU andbeyond. These contacts are managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

With private legal persons Extensive and at the discretion of the postholder subject only to ministerial and secretary general’s control.


117



CASE STUDY

MR. FLORIAN IONESCU

Personal details

Date of birth 3rd September 1980Date of seniority 1st January 2003Marital status SingleHome Flat 12 – 76 Str. Popa Radu, BUCHAREST

Employment details

Position held Debutant Civil Servant -Ministry Ministry of Labour

Previous experience

Other jobs 2002 – 2003 British CouncilLibrary Assistant

Education

University Bachelor of Arts – History - TimosoaraLibrarianship Diploma


History

Mr. Ionescu is at present undergoing a twelve month probationary period whichwill end of 31st December 2004. During the whole of this period he has beencounseled by a single individual, Mrs. Adriana Dimitriu, a supervisor in theemployment services division of the local office in Bucharest Sector 4. His dutiesinvolve the setting up of employment files for individuals. Recording their qualifications and work histories. Recording their work preferences. And thentrying to match individuals with vacant jobs. He also has to take preliminaryaction about claims for benefit. He has to record and verify the familycircumstances of the claimant. He has to obtain a record of the unemploymentinsurance contributions they have paid. He has to liaise with the welfare office to

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ensure that two different kinds of benefit are not paid to the same individual for the same circumstances.

Mr. Ionescu has done quite well. He is a conscientious young man. He alwaysarrives early at the office. He works solidly throughout the day and does not

leave before the closing time. He is very neat. His files are maintained up to dateand all the action that has been taken or is due to be taken is fully recorded onthem. Anyone in the office can pick up his cases and progress them.

He has two areas of difficulty: one of them probably due to lack of experience.Many of the people dealt with in this office are aggressive. They are indisadvantaged circumstances and many of them are in urgent need of money.They do not take kindly to being dealt with by a fresh-faced young man,obviously just out of college and quite new to the job. Consequently, he has hadhis difficulties. There have been no actual incidents, but many of his clients askfor second opinions or to see a supervisor. Mr. Ionescu needs to become more

assertive in his dealings with the public. He knows his job. He must communicatethat clearly. For the first ten weeks of his time with us all his interviews weresupervised and he still has the opportunity of sitting in on interviews carried outby senior staff and by supervisors. We hope that he will grow into this part of hiswork quite quickly when his probationary period is completed.

The second difficulty is potentially more serious. Mr. Ionescu has a blind spotwith figures. Many of his assessments are done two or three times over and theystill have to be checked very carefully. It is not that he does not understand therules. He knows them and can explain them very well. It is just that, faced with acolumn of figures, he seems to freeze. He gets the wrong arithmetical result,

even using a calculator with percentages built in. This needs worked on. Over thecoming three months Mr. Ionescu will work almost exclusively on assessmentwork. We hope that will give him confidence as well as experienced and that theproblem will be overcome.

His written work is very sound. He has a good command of language and canturn a phrase very well. There are no worries on that score. Indeed, after hisprobation is finished and he has shown that he can deal with the calculation sideof the work rather better, plans are that Mr. Ionescu should move into the unitdealing with employers. That mainly involves work on the telephone and writingletters. Both of these are strong points for him.

His judgment is sound. He knows what to do and when to do it. He now hasrather more than nine months of experience and seldom needs guidance ontechnicalities. When he puts a case forward for decision, the various options areinvariably fully documented and well argued. Seldom are his recommendationsoverturned. His case handling is concise and to the point.

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Mr. Ionescu is popular and well regarded by his colleagues. His willingness bothto do the work and to try hard is much appreciated. He has had a spread of experience and has shown himself to be quite adaptable. He is a good teammember, always willing to pick up where others have left off, and he documentscurrent and future action very well. He also has a sound general knowledge of

the Ministry and of government in general – this comes in part from his Universitystudies; his minor was in public administration, and in part from his work at theBritish Council Library where he was responsible for their weekly digest of government activity. But he has also taken full advantage of the training courseshe has attended related specifically to his current work.

He came to us not knowing very much about computers. Now he can use thesoftware used by the Ministry well. He is also quite competent on the Wordprogramme. He has been able to enter data into Excel spreadsheets quiteaccurately, but he has found the arithmetical functions quite confusing, in linewith previous comments.

Mr. Ionescu has received an induction training day and a three day formaltraining course in public administration during his probationary year. He willattend a job-specific course in February. He has been given supervised readingboth in relation to employment and benefit law and practice. He has also beengiven supervised reading in relation to public administration. He seems to haveabsorbed the material. He has received desk training from his guidancecounselor. He has also worked directly with more experienced colleagues,assisting them with their cases.

Overall, we are pleased to have Mr. Ionescu. His plus points are well marked.

Above all he is willing and he is trainable. He gets on well with clients and he willgrow in his experience of handling them. His number work needs strengthening,but arrangements are already in hand for that. He knows his work: he needs alittle more experience – that is all.

Mr. Ionescu’s job description as a debutant is attached. The objectives he wasgiven for his probationary year were the following.

• To gain an adequate knowledge of employment and benefit law by mid-year.This has been achieved, Mr. Ionescu now has a good grasp not only of thelaw, but of administrative procedures and practice.

•

To be able to deal with straightforward cases involving interviews with thepublic by end-June. This has been achieved, but Mr. Ionescu still needs moreexperience and needs to become more positive.

• To be able to assess accurately claims for unemployment benefit by mid-Juneand to be able to deal with more complex cases by end September. This hasbeen achieved, but Mr. Ionescu is still not entirely accurate in his handling of figures.

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• To be fully competent in file and claim building by end June and to be able towrite associated letters and minutes of enquiry. This was done very well. Mr.Ionescu is a neat and meticulous worker who writes well.

• To integrate into the work team as soon as possible and to show flexibilityand adaptiveness in working. Mr. Ionescu did this very well and very speedily.

He is a good, conscientious and loyal colleague.

Requirement

Based on this information, complete probation evaluation reports on Mr.Ionescu.

• Prepare a guidance counselor’s report as if you were Mrs. Adriana Dimitriu.Make the appropriate recommendations.

• Write a probationer’s report as if you were Mr. Ionescu.

• Write and mark, with appropriate recommendations, an evaluator’s report onMr. Ionescu.


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Public authority or institutionMinistry of Labour General directorateOperationsDirectorate

Employment ServicesDepartmentLocal OfficeOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Debutant – Employment Services and Unemployment Benefit

Level of the job Debutant - Executant


Name Florian IonescuClass 1Professional degree (if any) BA History. Librarianship Diploma

Main purpose of the job Provides an employment placing service for unemployed individuals. Assesses claims for unemployment benefit and puts

awards into payment.


Specialised training None apart from job specific training (Civil Serviceprovided).


Computer operation/programming End user for ministry system.Microsoft Word and Excel.

Foreign languages None required

Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Adaptable, responsible andable to see work through to a conclusion. God communication, written andoral and able to deal effectively with the public. Able to work on owninitiative and as a member of a team. Ability to analyse and synthesisewritten information and straightforward data. Computer literate – ministry

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systems and Microsoft Word and Excel. High standards of probity andethics.

Specific requirements (travelling, delegations, secondment)May be delegated to other local offices or ministry headquarters within

normal rules of secondment.

Managerial competence (knowledge, qualities, aptitudes)Not appropriate.

Responsibilities Acts a local officer dealing with casework related to placingunemployed individuals in work and assessing and putting into payment their entitlement to unemployment benefit. Builds and maintains claim files andemployment files. Works as a member of a team and assists colleagues as thework demands. Writes minutes and letters associated with casework. Uses theministry’s computer system as an end user and also uses Word and Excel

programmes.

Competence limits (decision freedom) All work to be subject to approval bysupervisor.

Delegation of responsibilities Not appropriate

Relationships

Internal


Functional Within team

Control By supervisor and seniors

Representation Only under supervision.

External

With public authorities and institutions Only as authorised bysupervisor

With international organisations Not appropriate.

With private legal persons With the agents of clients and subject todirection by supervisor.

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Drawn up by Notified to Job holder Endorsed by

Name…………… Name……………… Name………………Public office Signature………… Public office………Signature………. Date………………. Signature………….Date……………... Date………………...

124



CASE STUDY

MISS MARIANA POPESCU

Personal details

Date of birth 9th April 1982Date of seniority 1st January 2003Marital status SingleHome Flat 5– 18 Str. Vlad Patru, BUCHAREST

Employment details

Position held Debutant Civil Servant -Ministry Ministry of Finance

Previous experience

Other jobs 2002 – 2003 Chamber of CommerceOffice Assistant

Education

University Bachelor of Arts – Geography - BucharestWord Processing Diploma


History

Miss Popescu has been working in the pay unit for 10 months. She deals withgeneral salary matters and her work involves day to day contact with other Ministries. Most often this is about pay rates on promotion and about specialallowances that are paid in addition to basic salary rights.

The job is quite a technical one. It needs a good grasp, not just about salaryentitlement, but about the various statutory and other deductions that have to bemade – social insurance contributions, income tax and so on. The post holder has to be very familiar with word processing, with e-mail, and with Excelspreadsheet programmes, all of which are used daily. In addition, many basic

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calculations have to be made using an electronic calculator – we have one whichis programmable.

In many respects, Miss Popescu has been a model employee. She comes inearly and frequently works late, especially in the middle and at the end of the

month – our two most busy periods. She is a lively outgoing personality and hasbrought a breath of fresh air to a largely middle aged and pretty staid team. Sheworks quickly and accurately, making best use of the tools at her disposal. Her output, while not exceptional, has been well up to standard given her length of experience. Her biggest plus point is her accuracy – and she does not getflustered when the pressure is on.

There are really no negative points to her performance. It would be good to seeher extend her range into general finance related work. We had good reports of her from the training unit which she attended for 6 days and where the generaland pay specific work of the Ministry was covered. Such a move might be

possible in another 6 months or so. Various retirements are anticipated.

Next year she should concentrate as much as she can on the more complexcases, involving multiple allowances and rate changes.

Miss Popescu had these objectives for her probationary year.

• To acquire by the middle of the year adequate knowledge to process salarypayments, including statutory and voluntary deductions. This was achieved.Miss Popescu gained the necessary knowledge quickly and was workingeffectively on basic cases by the summer.

•

To acquire by the middle of the year adequate knowledge of Word, Excel and job specific computer programmes. This was achieved. Miss Popescu is quitecomfortable as a computer user.

• To extend the range of casework being handled by end September to includethose involving special allowances and discretionary payments and to be ableto deal with starting pay on promotion. This was achieved, but Miss Popescustill needs more experience.

• To integrate into the work team with minimum delay. Mis Popescu achievedthis easily. She is a cooperative and adaptable colleague.

Requirement

Based on this information, complete a probation evaluation report on MissPopescu.

• Mark and comment upon the extent to which objectives set for a probationperiod of twelve months have been fulfilled and deduce an overallperformance mark.

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• Make a recommendation concerning the probationary period – was itsatisfactorily or unsatisfactorily completed; should the appointment be madepermanent; should the appointment be terminated



127



Public authority or institutionMinistry of FinanceGeneral directorateCivil Service FinanceDirectorate

PayDepartmentSalariesOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Salary Clerk - Executant

Level of the job Debutant


Name Mariana PopescuClass1Professional degree (if any) BA Geography. Word Processing Diploma

Main purpose of the job Calculation of the salary entitlements of civil servantson starting, on promotion and when other relevant changes occur. Calculation of

salary allowances. Calculation of statutory and other deductions. Putting salariesand allowances into payment. Recovery of salary overpayments.Correspondence and minutes associated with salaries. Other work arisingrelevant to salaries.


Specialised training None


Computer operation/programming Use of Word, Excel and e-mail.


Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudes Numerate with gooddrafting skills. Able to solve problems and implement solutions. Able toplan and manage work load. Able to analyse and synthesise. Able to workwith minimum supervision. Able to work in a team. Good computer skills.

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CASE STUDY

MISS IRENE LUPU

Personal details

Date of birth 7th July 1982Date of seniority 1st January 2003Marital status SingleHome Flat 6 – 12 Poland St. BUCHAREST

Employment details

Position held Debutant Civil Servant -Ministry Ministry of Health

Previous experience

Other jobs None

Education

University Bachelor of Arts – Economics - BUCHAREST

Languages Romanian – fluent written and spoken (native)English – written 4, spoken 5

History

Miss Lupu has now completed almost a year in post. She found it difficult at firstto accommodate to the routine of daily work. She was frequently late and tookextended breaks, but this seemed to cure itself after about 3 months. Since thenshe has been a good attender and has applied herself to her work well, but she isnot particularly happy and says that she would like to be doing something moreexciting, perhaps involving face to face contact with the public.

Her main duties involve collecting and analysing material about complaintsregarding hospital services in Bucharest. Letter are received fromParliamentarians, Senators and Deputies and from members of the public. MissLupu has to assemble a file and then obtain information from the hospital andhealth authorities. She adds to this commentary from relevant healthprofessionals in the Ministry. Then she has to draft a letter answering the

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complaint. She circulates her draft to the health professional who have beeninvolved for comment and amendment. Finally, she prepares a final draft whichshe submits to her superiors for approval. Texts then go out at that level if thecomplaint has come directly from a member of the public or they are submitted toeither a State Secretary or occasionally to a Minister if the complaint has come

from a Parliamentarian.

The main problem with Miss Lupu’s drafts are that they are too terse. She setsthe facts out baldly and does not yet have the knack of setting out issues inperspective. On the other hand, she does well at building up the facts of a caseand is good at following up points that are loose or unclear. There has beensome improvement in her drafting over recent months and it could now bedescribed as a low average.

Where Miss Lupu scores is with her relationships with her colleagues. She is apersonable young woman and very willing to help. For example, there is a heavy

caseload in the section in which she works. Miss Lupu has been willing to workon the ‘bring forward’ system for other staff and to assemble information onwhich they can prepare their drafts. This has been a considerable help. She alsogets on very well with the health professionals with whom she comes intocontact; and they can sometimes be difficult. Her telephone manner too is verygood. She conveys and obtains information well and is non-threatening in her approach.

Over the past three months a working party has been operating. Its remit is todevise means of speeding up the handling of complaints, including the possibilityof devolving some of the work to hospitals and health authorities themselves.

Miss Lupu has been acting as joint secretary to this grouping harness with amore experienced colleague. She has been responsible for preparing minutes of meetings, for preparing action notes and for taking administrative action in followup. She has both enjoyed this and done it very well. Her minutes are succinctand accurate, and well balanced. So much so that they need the minimum of amendment. Similarly the action points she has drawn up have been accurateand clear. She has had some responsibility for following up action points withcolleagues and has done this in a good humoured and effective way.

In the coming year Miss Lupu will take over a full allocation of work. The sectionis organised to deal with cases on the basis of geographical divisions. Up to now,Miss Lupu’s cases have been hand picked to give her a wide range of experience of work in different subject areas and of different complexity. There isno doubt that she will be able to handle the volume. Our hope is that by then her drafting style will have matured to the point at which she will be fully effective.

The work of the section is fully computerised. Microsoft Word is used as thestandard word processing package and Excel is used to record the receipt andprogress of cases through to completion. Miss Lupu had not used a computer

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before joining the Ministry and now is an accomplished user. As well as thestandard packages she is able to use e-mail well and to carry out research on theinternet. She is not naturally comfortable with numbers, but tries hard andnormally achieves the results required

Miss Lupu has attended two training courses since joining the Ministry. The firstwas a five day induction course which covered public administration in general aswell as the operation of the Ministry. The second was one linked to the work of hospital services division. She came back from both very enthusiastic and bothproduced an improvement in her performance.

Overall Miss Lupu is now displaying a reasonable standard in her work. Her general drafting is less good than would be ideal, but it is showing signs of improvement. Her conduct, in terms of her work attendance, is now satisfactory,after a slightly shaky start. Relations with her colleagues, peers and superiors, isgood. There are no juniors in the unit.

Throughout the year Miss Lupu has had a single guidance counsellor, Mrs MariaGoran, her section supervisor, who has dealt with a number of probationary civilservants over past years.

Requirement

Based on this information, complete probation evaluation reports on Miss Lupu.

• Prepare a guidance counselor’s report as if you were Mrs. Maria Goran. Makethe appropriate recommendations.

• Write a probationer’s report as if you were Miss Lupu.

• Write and mark, with appropriate recommendations, an evaluator’s report onMiss Lupu.

Ramboll ManagementPhare Project Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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Public authority or institutionMinistry of HealthGeneral directorate

Health ServicesDirectorateHospital ServicesDepartmentWritten complaintsOffice Bucharest

Approved



Name of the job Written complaints case officer

Level of the job Debutant


Name Irene LupuClass 1Professional degree (if any) Batchelor of Arts - Economics

Main purpose of the job Analysing written complaints and providing draft replies


Specialised training None – general knowledge of public administrationand health ministry work


Computer operation/programming Operation of Word and Excel

Foreign languages None required

Necessary abilities, qualities and aptitudesAnalysis and drafting. Meeting casework output and quality goals. Workingwithin teams. Communication with health professional and other colleagues. Acting as committee secretary. General communication skills.Judgement related to casework and other activities.

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With private legal persons None except complainants andrepresentatives

Drawn up by Notified to Job holder Endorsed by

Name…………… Name……………… Name………………Public office Signature………… Public office………Signature………. Date………………. Signature………….Date……………... Date………………...

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SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS TO THEPERFORMANCE APPRAISAL CASE STUDIES

Notes

1. These notes are suggested solutions to the various case studies in the guide.Much of the material presented in the case studies is open to judgement.Therefore, some variation can be expected in the interpretations placed ondifferent aspects of the studies and thus some variation in the marks awarded

and the comments that are made.

2. All that is claimed for the solutions is that the marks and comments awardedare defensible. A variation of plus or minus one grade in a marking shouldbroadly be taken as acceptable. More than that should probably trigger another look at the case study material.

3. The solutions are in narrative form, but the narrative follows the flow of theevaluation report model provided in the sub-annex to the GovernmentDecision 1209/2003. We have in all cases included a justification for the markawarded.


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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONALICIAL FLORESCU

CHIEF OF OFFICE, MENTAL HEALTH UNITMINISTRY OF HEALTH

1. General remarks

2. The picture that the case study conveys is of a dedicated and generally ablecivil servant. Given her back ground, she is quite at home in the work of theUnit. Sometimes she lets emotions rule her head – her work in relation to theadvisory committee’s investigation of hospital scandals is an example. Butgenerally she is balanced, as well as committed. There are some indicationsthat she could be doing better in some areas – for example, in her writtenwork and in her numerical work. Some of her work has been notable. Thatrelating to the role of the psychologist is an example. She has also shownclear initiative in her work related to the control of violence in hospitals. Bread

and butter work has been adequately done. Overall her performance might berated as good, with some high points marked, as well as some lower ones.

3. Suggested marks and comments

4. Objectives

• Mental health advisory committee work on scandals. Mark 3. Work was goodoverall, but the Chairman could have been given firmer direction regardingcosts.

• Role of the psychologist. Mark 4. A very good, well thought out report owing

much to Miss Florescu.• Violence in hospitals. Mark 4. Very good work achieved largely on own

initiative.

• Study tours. Mark 4. Well organised tours with good follow up action.

• Child psychiatric services. Objective deferred with authority to end March.

5. Overall mark for objectives work (15/4) = 3.75.

6. Performance standards

• Adaptability Mark 3. Sometimes allows her feelings to run over her

judgement.• Analysis and synthesis (Very important) Mark 4. Good knowledge of the work

and its background which she uses to good effect. Particularly good work ondealing with violence in hospitals.

• Implementation (Very important) Mark 4. Identifies action for follow-upcorrectly and pursues action vigorously with the officials and othersconcerned.

• Strategic thinking Mark 3. Copes very adequately.

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• Decision making (Less important) Mark 3. Takes the decisions within her responsibility adequately.

• Team work Mark 2. No highs or lows.

• Written work Mark 2. Adequate, but it is an area of performance which sheshould try to improve.

• Oral performance Mark 3. Clear and to the point• Leadership Mark 2.

• Delegation Mark 2.

• Control Mark 2.

• Motivation Mark 2.

7. Overall mark for aspects of performance (32/12) 2.66

8. Final grade (3.5+2.66/2) 3.21. Good.

9. Outstanding results

10.No results in the outstanding category were achieved, but Miss Florescu’swork relating to the role of the psychologist was of a very high standard aswas that in relation to violence in hospitals.

11.Objective difficulties

12.None.

13.Other observations

14.Miss Florescu is a good performer across the range of her duties. She shouldtry to improve her written work, however. It tends to be too blunt and needsmore careful tailoring to its audience

15.Objectives for next year

• Policy development work on child psychiatry to be given priority. Achieve anagreed policy plan by end-April.

• Complete work on implementation of advisory committees report on hospitaland care centre scandals within budget available. Implementation plan to beagreed by end-February.

• Implementation plan for the role of clinical psychologists to be agreed by endMarch Thereafter implement according to agreed timetable.

• Complete work on violence in hospitals. Guidance to be issued by end-July.

• Continue effective liaison with programme for improvement of residentialhomes for children throughout year.

Ramboll Management Monday, June 14, 2004

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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMISS IRENE LUPU

DEBUTANT CIVIL SERVANTMINISTRY OF HEALTH

1. General remarks

2. Miss Lupu made an impaired start to her internship. She was frequently lateand took extended breaks. But this seems to have been confined to her firstthree months, and it is not unusual for people taking up work for the first timeto have difficulties in accommodating to the routine. While her difficulties canbe noted, they should be placed in the perspective of her later performancewhich seems to have been much better. Her preparation of draft letters couldstill do with improvement, but there are signs that this is happening. She hasdone well with the working party on hospital complaints. Her work here, whichhas included some complicated drafting, has been done well. Overall Miss

Lupu seems to have proved herself adequately as a civil servant. Her appointment to permanent status should be approved.

3. Guidance counselor's report

4. Activities carried out

5. Debutant civil servant working under supervision. Analysis of writtencomplains about hospital services provided in Bucharest. Complaints comefrom Senators and Deputies and from members of the public and their agents. Following analysis, Miss Lupu requests reports and other information

from the health authority and the hospital. Using this material, and followingany further enquiry necessary, Miss Lupu drafts a reply. Her draft is circulatedto health professionals for comment. The draft is then revised and submittedfor approval and eventual issue. Over the past three months Miss Lupu hasalso been working as joint secretary to the working party on the handling of complaints about hospitals. She prepares minutes and action notes andfollows the notes through to implementation.

6. Abilities proved

7. Good knowledge of health (hospital) law, regulations and procedures. Goodgeneral knowledge of public administration. Overall Miss Lupu currently fulfillsher responsibilities to a good standard. She is quite versatile and adaptable.She analyses her casework accurately and sends well thought out enquiriesto the health and hospital authorities. She has been willing and able to helpothers in the section with this aspect of the work when this has been needed.Her final draft replies are still a little too terse, but this has improved over thepast few moths. Her work with the hospital complaints working party has beenvery good. She reasons well. Her communication skills, apart from the issue

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17.Specialised courses

18.I attended a 5 day general induction course to the civil service and theministry and I attended a 1 day course on the work of hospital services

division.

19.Activities carried on outside the institution

20.None

21.Other activities

22.None

23.Description of activity carried out over the probation period

24.Supervised casework dealing with complaints about hospital service inBucharest. Joint secretary to the working party on hospital complaints sinceSeptember.

25.Difficulties encountered during the probation period

26.I found it difficult to adjust to the work when I first arrived and it was threemonths before I began to be comfortable with what I was doing. After thatperiod I think that I found my feet. My guidance counselor has told me that myletter drafts need more polish. I have been working on that since the criticism

was made and I think that I have been able to improve.

27.Evaluator’s report

• Knowledge of regulations specific to field of activity Mark 4.

• Knowledge of public administration Mark 4.

• Ability to fulfill office assignments Mark 4.

• Adaptability and versatility Mark 4

• Reasoning Mark 4.

• Communication Mark 3

• Ability for teamwork Mark 4.

• Line of conduct during working hours Mark 3• Evaluation rating Mark 3.75

Satisfactory, but needs to improve her written work on casework drafts.

Recommendation Suitable for permanent appointment.

Ramboll Management Monday, June 14, 2004

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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMR. BOGDAN DIMITRIU

CHIEF OF OFFICE – MINISTRY OF FINANCE

1. General remarks

2. Mr. Dimitriu has been presented as a good technician, but as a man who canlose the big picture in the detail. He is not a good delegator and theimplication of the material is that he does not get the best from his team.Overall, his performance is patchy. He is good at setting terms of reference,but hogs the contracts panel work and can over-dominate discussions andget bogged down in detail. His contract administration work seems to be donesatisfactorily, but he seems to be doing too much himself and demotivatinghis staff in the process. The wastage rate among his staff is alarmingly high;the more so since it is the more experienced that seem to leave. It is difficult

to see Mr. Dimitriu as more than just making the satisfactory grade. He doesnot seem a man over whom many tears would be shed if he foundemployment elsewhere.

3. Evaluation report

4. Objectives

5. Dealing with the development of project terms of reference. Mr. Dimitriu hascontinued to do most of this work himself and his staff have, to that extent, notbeen involved. The work has been done satisfactorily, but the lack of

delegation is an important criticism. Mark 2.

6. Improve the content and manner of his involvement in contract panels. Mr.Dimitriu is doing too much himself and his staff, in consequence, are beingexcluded. This is demotivating. The work Mr. Dimitriu performs is satisfactory,but he still in inclined to raise too many small points and to pursue them toofar. Mark 2.

7. To improve delegation of work to his staff. Mr. Dimitriu’s staff are kept busy,but disappointingly there has been no sign of increased delegation of responsibility to them. Staff turnover remains at too high a level. Mark 1.

8. To improve relationships with donor organisations and with contractors.Noticeable improvement has been achieved with the donor organisations, butrelationships with contractors remain problematic, in some degree. Mr.Dimitriu needs to show more flexibility, without reducing his high standards of probity and ethics. Mark 3.

9. Overall mark for objectives (8/4) 2.

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10.Aspects of performance

11.Adaptability (very important) Mark 2 – Mr. Dimitriu is not adapting well to thechanged environment in which contacts work is taking place.

12.Assuming responsibility Mark 2 – Mr. Dimitriu is very willing to take andexercise responsibility and, in personal terms, he does it well, but he crowdsout his team and does too much himself.

13.Problem solving (very important) Mark 3 – Mr. Dimitriu is very experiencedand his judgement can generally be relied upon, though he can pursue smallissues too far.

14.Decision making (very important) Mark 2 – Generally good, but can lose sightof the larger picture in the detail.

15.Implementing solutions Mark 3 – His judgement can be relied upon, but heneeds to make more use of his team.

16.Written communication Mark 3 – Good at drafting, accurate and to the point.

17.Oral communication Mark 2 – tends to dominate discussions too much.Sometimes fails to see issues in the correct perspective and gets them out of proportion. Did well this year as a speaker at various conferences.

18.Negotiation and mediation Mark 2 – prepares himself well and follows

established procedures exactly, but his style can be over dominant and hecan get sidetracked in small issues.

19.Team manager (Very important) Mark 1 – his performance is below thesatisfactory level. He does not delegate sufficiently and his staff aredemotivated and performing less well than they could.

20.Team member Mark 1 – Mr. Dimitriu tends too much to want to take the leadto be an effective team member. Where he does not have the lead he tendsto opt out.

21.PC use (Low importance) Mark 4 – An accomplished user of Word andespecially Excel.

22.Overall mark for aspects of performance (25/11) 2.27.

23.Final grade for the evaluation 2.14 Satisfactory.

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24.Narrative report

25.Outstanding results – none.

26.Objective difficulties – none known.

27.Other observations. Unfortunately the results being achieved by Mr. Dimitriuare less good than they could be. He is a good technician and understandsthe work admirably well. But there are two major failings. He does notdelegate or use his team to the best of their capacity. Consequently many of them are demoralized – some indeed have left. Second, he involves himself in too much detail and sometimes loses sight of the larger picture.Consequently his dealings with contractors can be fraught. All these mattershave already been drawn to Mr. Dimitriu’s attention, but there has been nosubstantive improvement this year.

28.Goals for next period

29.Achieve maximum delegation of work to team with immediate and continuingeffect.

30.Reduce personal participation in contact panels to no more than 50%, of total,delegating other attendances to team provided contracts are valued at lessthan Euro 1 million or equivalent.

31.Improve relationships with contractors with immediate and continuing effect.

Avoid pursuit of detail whenever possible.

32.Maintain present standards regarding the formulation of terms of reference,but delegate at least 40% of this work to your team by the end of March andcontinue at that level.

33.Training

34.Mr. Dimitriu should attend training in managing and motivating teams and ingeneral inter-personal behaviour skills.

Ramboll ManagementPhare Project Monday, June 14, 2004

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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMISS CARMINA ALBA

EXECUTANT, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE

1. General remarks

2. The picture presented is of an enthusiastic, committed civil servant who iswell on top of her job. There are few criticisms. Sometimes she goes too far and gets in danger of exceeding her brief, and she is not as good at handlingdata as would be ideal. The former can be controlled by effectivemanagement and the latter is to be addressed by further training for MissAlba next year. She now seems to be working well in her team. She gets onwell with Ministers and senior officials and has received a letter of praise for her work from a minister during the year. We would expect Miss Alba to beplaced at least in the ‘good’ category and she could just tip into the ‘very

good’.


4. Objectives

5. Improve daily dealings with the press. This has been achieved as a teameffort, but Miss Alba has played her part. The work has had a good outcome.Miss Alba has developed a web-page, largely on her own initiative. Mark 4.

6. Improve the development of data based information and tabulations. Miss

Alba has done less well here. She has made contact with the statisticians andhas obtained information from them, but has not been able to do more with itthan represent it. Nevertheless, Miss Alba is not a statistician, and she can beconsidered to have done reasonable well. Mark 3.

7. Improve horizontal relations. This seems to have been done sensitively andwell. She now occupies a lead position in the eyes of her colleagues. She hasalso established a fruitful relationship with the consultants. Mark 4.

8. Counseling the debutant civil servant. This also seems to have been donewell. The probation period was well structured and the debutant was wellmentored. Mark 4.

9. Overall mark for objectives (15/4) 3.75


11.Adaptability (Very Important). Miss Alba is versatile and willing and has donewell. She still needs to improve her data handling skills. Mark 3.

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12.Drafting (Very important). Miss Alba has done well. She produced a goodcommittee report that won approval. We have no information about her speech writing this year and we should assume there has been no substantialimprovement. Mark 3.

13.Ability to meet deadlines. There are no adverse comments and the tenor of the report is that Miss Alba is well on top of things. Mark 3.

14.Analysis and synthesis. There remains a question mark over her datahandling, but otherwise she seems able to handle complex issues well andaccurately. Mark 3.

15.Facility with language – oral (Very important). Miss Alba seems an assuredand polished performer. The criticism in the material about her dealings withthe agricultural industry and with trade unions has not been picked up this

year and it can be assumed to have been overcome. Mark 4.

16.Written work has been dealt with at 11.

17.High level of communication (Very important). This goes beyond facility withlanguage and deals with the effective passage of information. Miss Albaseems a very good performer overall. Mark 4.

18.Independent working. Miss Alba seems to work well on her own initiative.There are no criticisms this year about her exceeding her brief. She has donewell on the task group and on her two trips abroad. Mark 4.

19.Team member. The objective set on this has been met in full and she is wellappreciated by her colleagues. Mark 4.

20.Computer skills (Low). Miss Alba is more than competent. Mark 3.

21.Overall mark for performance standards (31/9) 3.44

22.Final grade for the evaluation (3.75+3.44/2) 3.60 – Very Good.

23.Report

24.Outstanding results. Miss Alba received a letter of commendation from theMinister this year for her work in connection with at trip to Brussels. She alsodid a very good job as counselor to a debutant civil servant.

25.Objective difficulties. None known.

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26.Other observations. Miss Alba has done very well this year. Her drafting hasimproved and her oral presentation is assured. She still needs to polish her data handling skills and a course is being arranged for her next year.

27.Goals for the next period

28.Improve data handling skills (by mid year). Show capacity to deal with dataintegrity tests, population samples, standard deviation and regression as wellas percentages, averages, means and modes. Demonstrate by application of techniques to data handling.

29.Improve speech writing (by end first quarter). Incorporate more substance intodrafts and tailor them better to the needs of the speech-maker and theaudience. Demonstrate by fewer amendments being needed to drafts.

30.Build on existing relationships with external consultants (throughout year).

Demonstrate a full understanding of the project management methodology.Demonstrate through appropriate support to the senior project officer.

31.Continue to improve and build upon relationships within the work team(throughout the year). Demonstrate by relationships observed by supervisor.

32.Maintain and, if possible improve further, daily dealings with the press(throughout the year). Demonstrate by improved range and number of contacts.

33.Training

34.Miss Alba should attend a course in elementary statistical and data analysisas soon as practicable during the coming year. The course should be Excelbased.


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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMR. CORNELIUS NEGRU

EXECUTANT (AUDITOR), MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT

1. General remarks

2. Mr. Negru is presented as rather a one sided individual. As an auditor he isan accomplished technician, but he is an uncomfortable, rather dauntingcolleague and he is not really coming to grips with the changes that are beingmade in the audit world. As a result, he risks becoming professionally isolatedand out of date with current practice, notwithstanding his (laudable) pursuit of an accountancy qualification. His attitude to the team of external consultantsis worrying and seems likely to bring him grief. We would expect to see Mr.Negru marked highly on the purely technical aspect of the work (probablyaround 4), but to be marked down to 2 and in some cases 1 on other aspectsof his work. The overall mark might be 2, pulled up by his technical work, but

with words of caution being expressed in the narrative report.


4. Objectives

5. Build bridges with audit client organisations. This has not been done and, insome respects at least, Mr. Negru has done the opposite. He has increasedthe number of his audit enquiries and has been asking more detailedquestions. However, some of those seem to have been pertinent. Overallthough, his performance on this objective has been unsatisfactory. Mark 1.

6. Immediately improve relationships with colleagues. Opportunities were giventhrough the working party and by involving him with the consultant team. Bothseem to have had negative results. His performance on these matters isclearly below an acceptable standard. Mark 1.

7. Improve written work. There has been no change in Mr. Negru’s performance.He has therefore failed to meet the objective. On the other hand, his draftsare clear and to the point. We can meet that by an appropriate mark in‘aspects of performance’. In respect of the objective, the correct result is Mark1.

8. Speed up closure of audit points. Mr. Negru continues to head the league inthe number of audit points raised and the implication is that some of them, atleast, are unnecessary. He has three times more outstanding audit enquiriesat the year end than anyone else. He is obviously working hard, but he isignoring advice and direction. Mark 1.

9. Mark for objectives (4/4) 1.00 unsatisfactory.

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11.Facility with figures (Very high). Mr. Negru rates highly on this. His technicalabilities are not in doubt. Mark 4.

12.Good drafting (Low). His drafts are blunt to a fault and he does not trouble totailor them to the recipients, but they are clear and concise. Mark 2.

13.Good orally (Low). His approach is said to be sparse and staccato; a manwho prefers to let figures speak rather than words. However, he seems to gethis points across. With some hesitation, Mark 2.

14.Analyse and synthesize (Very high). Mr. Negru is a good technician. He getsdirectly to the point of issues and does no become distracted, but he does getbogged down in the minutiae. This pulls down his mark. He scrapes Mark 3.

15.Self motivation. Mr. Negru should score well here. He pushes mattersforward, perhaps not always in the best way, but he does it. He stands up for himself and his principles. He would score higher if he showed more

judgement. Mark 3.

16.Self reliant. Again Mr. Negru scores well here, and again he is pulled downsomewhat by his lack of judgement. Mark 3.

17.Sets and achieves objectives. A low score is appropriate here. Mr. Negrumight set and achieve goals, but they are not the goals set for him or really

what the organisation wants and needs. Mark 1.

18.Personal responsibility. Mr. Negru seems very willing to take responsibility for what he does, but his judgement of issues lets him down. Mark 2.

19.Flexible and adaptable. This is just what Mr. Negru is not and the case studyis full of examples. Mark 1.

20.Computing skills. Mr. Negru seems to have skills well above the average.Mark 4.

21.Mark for performance standards (25/10) 2.5 satisfactory

22.Final grade for the evaluation (1+2.5/2) 1.75 satisfactory.

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33.Training programmes

34.Mr. Negru should receive periodic counselling (monthly) from his supervisor about his performance. He should also attend a formal training course in

interpersonal behaviour and in team working.


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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMISS MARIA BACU

EXECUTANT/INSPECTOR MINISTRY OF LABOUR AND SOCIALSOLIDARITY

1. General remarks

2. Miss Bacu is presented very much as an official in command of her job. Her technical work is very sound. She has a high work rate and a high output, andmakes sure that she does not carry any arrears. She is said to be rather waspish with her peers and the impression is conveyed of a person whoexpects people to perform as well as she does herself. In this respect, her standards are probably too high. She is not as good at preparing material for Ministers and dignitaries as she is at case work. Her submissions are toomuch ‘written by an official’ and do not take enough account of the needs of

the recipient. She has recently been a near miss candidate for promotion.Overall we would expect Miss Bacu to merit a marking for 4 with somereservations about her abilities in relation to providing material for ministersand others.


4. Objectives

5. The World Bank Project. She seems to have done this work well. Theinception report has varied from the technical proposal, which is normally

expected to some degree, but the changes have all been to the advantage of the ministry. Miss Bacu is working well with the consultants and seems tohave their confidence. Mark 4.

6. Improvement in work to Ministers and dignitaries. More work has been doneand some improvement seems to have been made; recipients are pleasedwith the content, but still amend the presentation. This is an area in whichMiss Bacu still needs to improve. Mark 3.

7. Improve relations with colleagues. This seems to have occurred, but in anindirect way. Miss Bacu has improved her efficiency even further and madeherself more indispensable. Mark 3.

8. Ability to deputise. Miss Bacu seems to have done this very well. There is asneaking feeling that Jane is as good as her mistress. Mark 4.

9. Overall mark for objectives (14/4) 3.5 Good

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10.Performance standards

11.Casework (Very important). Handles a complex and heavy caseload verywell. Avoids arrears and works accurately. Mark 4.

12.Priorities. Able to set and maintain her own work priorities with the minimumof supervision. Mark 4.

13.Adaptable (Less important). Works well with clients and with consultants. Ableto move easily from one type of work to another. Mark 4.

14.Self reliant. Very confident and self contained officer. Needs very littleguidance except in relation to submissions to Ministers and dignitaries. Mark4.

15.Problem solving (Very important). Does this very well in relation to caseworkand other technical work. Needs some advice and guidance in (written)dealing with Ministers and dignitaries. Mark 4.

16.Written work. Very good in relation to casework and to work with the WorldBank consultants. Drafts to Ministers and dignitaries need to be tailored moreto their needs. Mark 3.

17.Oral work. Confident and assured. Mark 4.

18.Team working (Less important). Admired and respected as a colleague with

very good technical skills. Sometimes expects too high standards from thosearound her. Mark 3.

19.Computing. Expert knowledge of the ministry’s dedicated system. Advanceduse of Microsoft Word and Excel – attended appropriate courses this year.Mark 5.

20.Overall mark for performance standards (35/9) 3.89.

21.Final grade for the evaluation (3.50+3.89/2) 3.70 – very good.

22.Report

23.Outstanding results. Miss Bacu attended an advanced computing courseduring the year and is now an expert user.


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25.Other observations. Miss Bacu is a very good all round performer. There areno major criticisms. Her drafts to ministers and to dignitaries need to be better tailored to the recipient and sometimes she expects too much from her colleagues.


27.Achieve improvement in draft material being sent to Ministers and dignitariesimmediately and throughout the year. Test – fewer drafts being amended.

28.Maintain an average output of X cases per week throughout the year.

29.Maintain arrears of post below 7 days throughout the year.

30.Training programmes

31.None.


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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMR. DAN MITROI

DEPUTY SECRETARY GENERALMINISTRY OF ADMINISTRATION

1. General remarks

2. Mr. Mitroi is presented as an able senior official. He has a heavy work loadand he handles it well, working long hours to get it done. There is a hint thathe is doing too much and, perhaps, could delegate more. The main watch

point in dealing with Mr. Mitroi’s case is one of standards. He is a senior official and, as such, he should be expected to set and reach particularly highstandards of performance. This should be reflected in the judgements that aremade. Overall, we would expect Mr. Mitroi to be in the good or very goodcategory.

3. Statement of activities

4. Leadership of [defined] directorates within the Ministry of Administrationdealing with the management and development of the Romanian civil service.

5. Negotiations, as leader and as participant, with EU countries and authorities,including the World Bank and IMF, on matters affecting the management anddevelopment of the Romanian civil service.

6. Achieved re-codification of the entire body of Romanian law governing themanagement and functioning of the civil service. Anti-corruption legislationand ethics legislation remain to be fully implemented.

7. Decentralisation of powers from the central civil service to local authoritiesand specified non-governmental agencies. Framework legislation achieved.Further secondary legislation still required.

8. Design and implement a scheme for the incorporation of a fast-stream of civilservants within the Romanian civil service system. The necessary primaryand secondary legislation was achieved and the scheme is now operational.

9. General support to Ministers on a day to day basis.

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10.Evaluation report

11.Objectives

12.EU and other negotiations. Mr. Mitroi has played and prominent and effectiverole and achievements have been made. However, the implementationtimetable might be too ambitious. Mark 4.

13.Recodification of civil service law. The recodification was achieved one monthahead of target. However, there has been slippage on the (important) anti-corruption and ethics legislation. Mark 3.

14.Decentralisation. This seems a difficult and contentious area of work. Some

good progress has been made, but both primary and secondary legislationhave still to be completed. The implication in the material is that such delaysas there have been have been outside Mr. Mitroi’s control. Mark 3.

15.Fast stream. This has been designed and is now ready to go fully operational.Mr. Mitroi has apparently played a major parting the development of thescheme. Mark 4.

16.Mark for objectives (14/4) 3.50 Good.


18.Objectives focused. Mr. Mitroi seems well focused in his work, but perhapsslightly soft on implementation issues. Mark 3.

19.High responsibility (Very important). Mr. Mitroi seems to take his work veryseriously, to set high targets and, in general, achieve them. If there is a fault,it is that he might be doing too much himself. Mark 4.

20.Independence. Mr. Mitroi seems to work very well on his own initiative andexercises good control over affairs. Mark 4.

21.Analysis and synthesis (Very important). This seems well developed, but his judgement seems to have slipped a bit regarding the Phare Projects. He alsoseems to have been too optimistic in his assessment of the timetable for implementation of EU related work. Mark 3.

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22.Drafting. He is said to draft concisely, accurately and at high speed, so this isa particular strength. Mark 5.

23.Oral. Again, this seems to be a particular strength. He is an excellentchairman of meetings and a very good negotiator. Mark 5.

24.Leadership. Mr. Mitroi seems to give adequate leadership without beingparticularly exceptional. He builds loyalty and respect, but cherry picks hisstaff. He can be sardonic. Mark 3.

25.Management. Seems to fall down a little on implementation, but overall is acompetent performer. Mark 3.

26.Delegation (Less important). This seems a weakness. His high work load is,in part, something of his own making. He could have delegated more and alsoreorganized his personal staff. Mark 3.

27.Probity and ethics. Seems to set and maintain high standards. Mark 3.

28.Mark for aspects of performance (36/10) 3.60 Good.

29.Final grade for the evaluation (3.50+3.60/2) 3.55 Very good.

30.Report

31.Outstanding. Mr. Mitroi’s drafting and oral work are both of an outstandinglevel.

32.Objective difficulties. Negotiations on decentralisation have been protractedfor reasons beyond Mr. Mitroi’s control.

33.Other observations. Mr. Mitroi is a very competent performer overall. Hemight, however, be doing too much himself and should look for opportunitiesfor delegation.

34.Training

35.None

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36.Objectives next period

37.Achieve greater delegation of work to subordinates – immediate.

38.Review and, if necessary, revise the timetable for implementation of theoutcome of negotiations with EU authorities and World Bank. Undertakerenegotiation if necessary. By end March.

39.Recover 2 months slippage on implementation of anti-corruption and ethicslegislation. By end June.

40.Advance outstanding primary and secondary legislation on decentralisationissues. Develop implementation plans and bring new arrangements into fulleffect. By end June.

41.Set up and operate effective monitoring arrangements for the fast streamscheme with effect from January and continuing. Make a formal appraisal of arrangements September.


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9. Debutant civil servant’s report

10.Office assignments. Casework related to the award and payment of salary to

civil servants. Calculating statutory and voluntary deductions using computer system. Dealing with awards of pay related allowances. Drafting letters andminutes. Other assigned work in relation to the salary system.

11.Other assignments. None.

12.Courses. Six day course at ministry training unit dealing with induction,government finance and public administration, pay system.

13.Duties outside the institution. None.

14.Other activities. None.

15.Description of the activities carried out over the probation period. Supervisedcasework dealing with the award and change of salaries on appointment andpromotion. Calculating and accounting for statutory and voluntary deductions.Writing associated minutes and letters. Dealing with telephone calls from civilservants and their employing institutions about pay matters. Occasionalsupervised interviews with civil servants about their pay. Generaladministrative work in support of the pay team. Use of computer for ministry’spay system and also Word and Excel.

16.Difficulties encountered. None.

17.Evaluation report

18.Knowledge of regulations in field of activity. Mark 4.

19.Knowledge of public administration. Mark 3.

20.Ability to fulfill assignments. Mark 4.

21.Adaptability and versatility. Mark 4.

22.Reasoning. Mark 3.

23.Communication. Mark 3.

24.Team work. Mark 4.

25.Conduct. Mark 4.

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26.Proposals. Move to general work in due course.

27.Recommendation. Permanent appointment

28.Objectives for next year

29.Take over a full assignment of casework by end February and workunsupervised within normally delegated limits.

30.Maintain a clearance rate of X cases a week throughout year.

31.Maintain post arrears within seven days throughout year.

32.Achieve familiarity with more complex cases assigned by supervisor – byJune.

Ramboll Management Wednesday, June 16, 2004

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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMRS EVANGELINE MIRCEAU

EXECUTANT/LEGAL EXPERTMINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

1. General remarks

2. Mrs. Mirceau is presented as something of a mixed character. She is sociallyadept and those aspects of her job that depend on that she does very well.However, she seems no to be good at getting down to the bread and butter of follow up work and action, preferring to leave that to others, as she moves onto other things. Yet she is not all puff and frivolity. She produces excellent

briefing. She is very good at organising and conducting study tours. She hasextended the Lex database and made it more useful and relevant. Sheorganised a very good event at the Goethe Institute. So there are clearlypluses and minuses. However, the overall impression is of someone whoskates over the surface of things too much, and it is probably a criticism of her manager that she is allowed to do so. Overall we would expect Mrs. Mirceauto gain a satisfactory grading, but probably no more than that. Someoneneeds to get tough with her next year.


4. Objectives

5. Developing professional and social contacts and taking follow up action. Mrs.Mirceau has done the first part very well, but has fallen down on the second.Mark 2.

6. Organise and participate in study tours. Mrs. Mirceau has organised four tours this year. The arrangements have been very good and the tours wentoff well. She also seems to have covered the follow up action well. Mark 4.

7. Raise the profile of the EU related legislation department. This seems to havebeen done well. Mrs. Mirceau has taken well thought out initiatives and hasput them into practice. Mark 3.

8. Translate intelligence into implemented action. Mrs. Mirceau has notperformed well here. She has identified action but has not taken it. This is amajor failing. Mark 1.

9. Mark for objectives (10/4) 2.50

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10.Performance standards

11.Adaptability. Mrs. Mirceau is socially adaptable, but she avoids a big part of her responsibilities, possibly because she finds them relatively uncongenial.

Mark 2.

12.Initiative. Mrs. Mirceau seems able to work well on her own initiative, subjectto the reservation that she leaves implementation too much aside. Mark 3.

13.Drafting. Mrs. Mirceau is said to be very good at drafting. Her briefing is saidto be elegant. Mark 4.

14.Oral. Mrs. Mirceau seems to be an assured performer and is fluent in anumber of languages. Mark 4.

15.Problem solving. She seems adept at spotting and documenting issues, butdoes not follow them through to a conclusion. Mark 2.

16.Implementation. This seems her Achilles heel. She really needs to work onthis. Mark 1.

17.Negotiating. This is not covered specifically in the case material, but thebroad implication is that Mrs. Mirceau would do it well. Mark 3.

18.Team work. Not much of a team player. She leaves others to do work thatshe should do herself. Mark 1.

19.Computing. She is said to be an expert user. Mark 4.

20.Probity and ethics. Palming off work is not an ethical activity. Mark 2.

21.Mark for aspects of performance (26/10) 2.60 – Good

22.Final grade for the evaluation (2.50+2.60/2) 2.55 – Good.

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23.Report

24.Outstanding results. None


26.Other observations. Mrs. Mirceau’s work this year has been mixed. She hasbeen very good at establishing, maintaining and developing contacts. Thestudy tours for which she was responsible were a considerable success. Butshe is falling down on a large part of the work. She does not follow issuesthrough to their conclusion and is generally weak on implementation. Thiscannot simply be left to others. She must attend to this next year.

27.Training

28.Seminar training in team work and in project implementation.


30.With immediate effect and continuing throughout the year place emphasis onimplementation of proposals and agreed action. To be evaluated by check of completed action by supervisor.

31.Continue throughout the year to develop and maintain range of contacts withEU related missions in Romania, but concentrate on identifying points for action and on following them through. To be evaluated by check of completed

action by supervisor.

32.With immediate effect and throughout the year, improve relations with thework team by ensuring that action is not passed to them which you shouldtake yourself. To be evaluated by supervisor checking work flow.

33.Undertake training in teamwork and project implementation as soon as it canbe arranged. Thereafter apply training to everyday work.


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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMR. DANIEL TEODORESCU

CHIEF OF OFFICE – LEGAL SERVICESMINISTRY OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

1. General remarks

2. Mr. Teodorescu is presented as a competent civil servant. He knows thebackground to his work very well and works well with engineers and other professional staff. He manages his team well. But he can go too far on his

own initiative and does not always keep his seniors fully in the picture. This,however, seems a relatively minor fault. More serious is his failure to progresswork on privatisation legislation to timetable and his failure to get a workingscheme out of the committee dealing with the sharing of heavy maintenanceequipment. He could have done better on both of these matters. On the other hand he has done well in developing bilateral international power supplyagreements and on the initial work regarding property transfers. Overall wewould expect to see him rate at the middle range of the good scale. The lowpoints are too severe to be completely offset by the high points.


4. Objectives

5. Privatisation legislation. Slippage has occurred. It is potentially serious andthere seems no good reason for it. The implication is that work that has beendone is of a good standard, but it needs to be accelerated. Mark 2.

6. Heavy maintenance equipment. Mr. Teodorescu has not got on top of this, ashe should have done. There has been no substantive progress. There is noagreement on the basis of equipment sharing and no secondary legislation,even in draft. Mark 1.

7. Bilateral agreements for grid access. Mr. Teodorescu has done well here. Thework is progressing faster than anticipated. He has proved to be a goodnegotiator. Mark 4.

8. Property rights. Mr. Teodorescu seems to have made a very good start to thiswork and seems to have managed his team very well. Mark 4.

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9. Management of the debutant and the engineer. Mr. Teodorescu seems tohave done both these tasks very well. Mark 4.

10.Mark for objectives (15/5) 3.00 – Good.


12.Objectives oriented. Mr. Teodorescu has fallen down on two of his goals thisyear. But, in general he seems sufficiently task and goal oriented. Mark 2.

13.Analysis and synthesis (Very important). With the exception of the work onmaintenance equipment, which seems to have generated more heat thanlight, Mr. Teodorescu seems to be good at analysis and synthesis. Mark 3.

14.Initiative. He has let himself down on the maintenance equipment work and toa lesser extent on the privatisation work, but otherwise he seems to havegood initiative. Mark 3.

15.Problem solving (Very important). Again he is let down by his work on his firsttwo goals, but on other work he has done well and particularly well on thebilateral agreements. Mark 3.

16.Work planning. Most of this has been done well, but he is again let down bythe work on privatisation and on maintenance equipment. Mark 3.

17.Decision making. The maintenance contract work is a blot as is privatisation.Other decision making seems to have been above average. Mark 3.

18.Drafting (Very Important).This not dealt with specifically in the case study, butit carries a general implication that Mr. Teodorescu’s drafting is sound. Mark3.

19.Oral (Very important). Mr. Teodorescu did a very good job negotiating thebilateral agreements and he is said to be good at meetings. His failure withthe maintenance equipment work drops him down a notch. Mark 3.

20.Team leader. Mr. Teodorescu seems to motivate his team well and drawsgood work from them. He has also worked well with the debutant and theengineer. Mark 4.

21.Team working. Mr. Teodorescu is very good working down, but not so good atworking up. His superiors are sometimes kept in the dark. Mark 3.

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22.Performance appraisal (Less important). Nothing is said about this in the casestudy beyond that he dealt well with the debutant. Mark 3.

23.Computing (Less important). Mr. Teodorescu has coped well with the re-computerisation of his unit this year. Mark 3.

24.Ethics. Said to be highly ethical. Mark 4.

25.Mark for aspects of performance standards (40/13) 3.08 – Good.

26.Final grade for the evaluation (3.00+3.08/2) 3.04 – Good.

27.Report

28.Outstanding results. None, but Mr. Teodorescu did particularly well indeveloping bilateral power supply agreements.


30.Other comments. Mr. Teodorescu’s performance has been mixed this year.He did not progress work on privatisation matters as fast as was needed andthe working group on the sharing or maintenance equipment has not yetconcluded satisfactorily. But he did a very good job negotiating bilateralsupply contracts (ahead of time) and a very good start has been made to thework relating to the transfer of property rights. He has also managed thedebutant civil servant and the engineer appointed to his unit very well.

31.Goals for next period.

32.Privatisation legislation. Draw and agree a work plan for this activity by mid-January. Submit detailed and costed plan for approval.

33.Privatisation legislation. Achieve draft primary legislation agreed with mainstakeholders by end March. Submit draft for approval.

34.Privatisation legislation. Achieve draft secondary legislation agreed with mainstakeholders by end May. Submit drafts for approval as they are completed.

35.Working party on maintenance equipment. Reconvene the working party andreach agreed proposals for sharing by mid February. Submit report for approval. Thereafter, prepare draft regulation for approval no later than endMarch.

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36.Property Transfers. Prepare contracts for employment of consultant valuersby end January and let contract by end February. Thereafter manage andcontrol the consultancy work as senior project officer. Valuations to becompleted by year end. Continue work on property transfers without delay.

37.Bilateral agreements. Complete work on bilateral agreements by endSeptember. Submit individual agreements for approval as they arenegotiated.


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CASE STUDY SOLUTIONMR. FLORIAN IONESCU

DEBUTANT – MINISTRY OF LABOUR

General remarks

Mr. Ionescu is presented as a generally good performer. He is conscientious andneat, and has now reached the stage where he can work largely unsupervised.His main weak point is his figure work, but this is being worked on and thedifficulty may be overcome with more practice. Overall we would expect Mr.Ionescu to pass through his probation period satisfactorily

Suggested marks and comments

Guidance counselor’s report

Activities carried out

Setting up, developing and maintaining employment files. Dealing with the publicon employment and benefit matters. Calculating and assessing the award of unemployment benefit. Liaising with the welfare office ands other parts of theMinistry regarding casework. Drafting minutes, letters and reports. Working withina small team. Using a word processor and spreadsheet.

Abilities proved

He has a very good knowledge of the law, regulations and administrativeinstructions relating to the work. He also has a good general knowledge of publicadministration. He deals well with the public, but needs more experience and tobe a little more positive. He has some difficulty with figure work, but this is beingworked on. His written work is of a good standard. He works very well within theteam.

Conduct

Excellent. A diligent and willing worker.

Conclusions

Overall performance is very good apart from the relative weakness with figures.

Recommendation

Suitable for permanent appointment.

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Report by Mr. Ionescu

Office assignments

Preparing developing and maintaining case files. Dealing with the public onemployment and benefit matters. Processing claims for unemployment benefit.Writing minutes, letters and reports. Liaising with other parts of the Ministry andwith the welfare office. Working within a small team. Using a computer for wordprocessing and spreadsheet work.

Other assignments

Additional work on the assessment and checking of benefit claims

Training

No formal training courses. Undertook supervised reading in work related mattersand in general public administration. Received desk training from supervisor andother colleagues.

Work carried on outside the institution

None.

Other activities

None.

Description of the activities carried out during probation

Dealing with an allocation of employment and benefit work. The size andcomplexity of the allocation was increased during the period. Dealing with thepublic, initially supervised and then alone. Writing minutes, letters and reportsusing a word processor. Obtaining and providing information from and to thewelfare office and other parts of the Ministry by telephone and in writing.Maintaining case records using a spreadsheet. Providing assistance tocolleagues in the work team.

Objective difficulties encountered

None. I found difficulty with the figure work at first, but I think that this has beenovercome.

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Evaluator’s report

Evaluation criteria

Knowledge of regulations specific to activity Mark 4Knowledge of public administration Mark 3Ability to fulfill assignments Mark 3Adaptability and versatility Mark 4Reasoning Mark 4Communication Mark 4Team work Mark 4Conduct Mark 5

Evaluation rating 3.88

Proposals

Needs further experience of number work and of dealing with the public.

Recommendation

Permanent appointment.


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NOTE ON EVALUATION CRITERIA

1. This section of the guide sets out in tabular form evaluation criteria for performance. There are three sets.

a. Criteria relating to general civil servants.b. Criteria for legal staff.c. Criteria for staff working in finance units.

2. There are many more types of civil servant than those covered. These aremainly specialists working in particular public authorities or institutions, butevaluation criteria for these civil servants cannot be sensibly prepared

centrally and must remain a matter for the particular organisation to develop.

3. The criteria are listed from left to right in ascending grade order. The gradesare generic ones and are intended to give a broad indication of level of activity at which particular points of evaluation might be relevant.

4. The evaluation criteria are broad statements of the type and standard of activity that might be expected on different aspects of work. They areintended to be general guides. They have been drafted on the basis that theyrepresent a standard that should be achieved by the civil servant of averageperformance.

5. The evaluation criteria should be used to supplement the issues identified for a particular official as his or her aspects of individual performance for performance appraisal purposes.

Ramboll ManagementPhare Project Monday, June 28, 2004

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Professional Knowledge Has acquired and can useeffectively in the course of dayto day work the professionalcivil service knowledgerequired by the post.

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Excutant Chief of bureau/service Director Director General and ab

Core competencies

Ethics

Understands and abides by theethical standards set for theorganisation and the civilservice.

Understands and abides by theethical standards set for theorganisation and the civilservice. Acts as an ethicalexample to juniors.

Understands and abides by theethical standards set for theorganisation and for the civilservice. Can be relied on for sound ethical advice incomplex situations.

Understands and abides bethical standards set for thorganisation and the civilservice.Ensures that sound ethicastandards permeate theorganisation. Acts as a souof sound ethical advice incomplex situations.

Written work

Tailors to needs of recipient.Organises text logicallyusing headings,paragraphs and sub-

paragraphs. Uses correctgrammar and syntax.Comprehends written textaccurately.

Able to deal effectively withmore complex draftingadequately meeting the needsof recipients. Ability to

synthesise texts from disparatesources. Able to prepareaccurate summaries of complex material. Able to addvalue to texts prepared by juniors.

Marked facility in the use of language. Able to dealeffectively with the mostcomplex and sensitive drafting

fully meeting the needs of recipients. Able to draftaccurately at speed. Able toadd significant value to thedrafts of others

Polished and effective drafully meeting the needs of recipients. Drafts fluently aconcisely at high speed. A

to weigh and reconcile diffpoints of view in a conciseaccurate manner. Is lookeupon as an exemplar of godrafting.

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Oral competence

Competent in one to onesituations and in small groups.Speaks to the point usingaccurate and appropriatelanguage. Able to comprehendand relay informationaccurately.

Competent in one to onesituations, in small groups andas a staff manager. Ability tosummarise discussionscogently and accurately.Contributes points that carrydiscussion forward.

Very effective in one to onesituations in small and largegroups and as a staff manager.Able to contribute positively informal and informal situations.An effective public speaker.Shows marked ability tosynthesise complexdiscussions and to framecontributions that lead to aneffective conclusion.

An effective communicatoany situation, formal or informal. Punctilious in theof language. Facilitates ansynthesises the contributioothers. Adept at assistingdiscussion to a conclusionLooked on as an exceptioneffective communicator.

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Numeracy

Able to carry out arithmeticalcalculations, includingarithmetic mean and mode andpercentages using a calculator.Able to prepare tables and todeduce graphs andhistograms.

General PC BasedComputer Skills

Able to use Windows (or other)operating system for efficientfile management, transfer andcopying of files. Able to useword processing software for the preparation andamendment of documents,including the incorporation of tables. Able to prepare andformat simple spreadsheets

and to generate histograms.Able to use e-mail and web-browser.

Able to prepare and analysesimple tables effectively. Ableto prepare and analyse graphsand histograms. Understandsnormal and skeweddistributions.

Able to use Windows (or other)operating systemcomprehensively. Able to useword processing softwarecomprehensively. Able toprepare complex spreadsheetsincluding the use of basicformulas and to generatehistograms. Able to use e-mailand web-browser.

Marked facility with figures.Able to interpret complex datacorrectly.

Able to use Windows (or other)operating system. Able tocreate, access and amenddocuments using wordprocessor. Able to access andamend spreadsheets. Able touse e-mail and web browser.

Uses appropriate data rouand accurately. Able to spedata requirements accurat

Able to use Windows (or ooperating system. Able toaccess and amend word-processed documents. Abaccess and amendspreadsheets. Able to usemail and web-browser.

Job specific computer skills

Able to use job specificsoftware and hardware easilyand accurately.

Able to use job specificsoftware and hardware easilyand accurately. Able to instructothers in its use. Able to fixroutine problems.

Aware of the capacities andrequirements of the job specificsoftware and hardware and of its limitations in use.

Aware of the capacities anrequirements of the job spsoftware and hardware anits limitations in use.

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Adaptability

Able to plan personal workaround competing priorities.Seeks new tasks andaccommodates to them easily.

Able to assess accurately theeffect of new work on self andteam and to plan effectively toaccommodate it. Dealscorrectly with competingpriorities with minimumguidance. Takes initiative inseeking new work.

Highly adaptable, self-motivator. Able to work on owninitiative within a broadstrategic framework. Assessescompeting priorities accuratelyfor self and team. Activelyseeks new responsibilities andinitiatives.

Comfortable in an unstructenvironment with manycompeting priorities.

Personal Responsibility

Able to work substantiallyunsupervised. Managespersonal workload effectively.Works steadily and achieves ahigh standard and quantity of output.

Works substantially on owninitiative within delegatedresponsibility. Ensures teamachieves a satisfactory volumeand quality of output.Contributes effective ideas tothe larger work of theorganisation

Works on own initiative withminimum guidance fromsuperiors. Contributes stronglyto organisational goals andobjectives. Sets and expectshigh standards for himself andfor others. Is a present leader in a crisis.

Works entirely on own initiwithin the strategic goals aobjectives for the organisaMeets the highest standarterms of quantity and qualoutput. Takes responsibilitwhen things go wrong andeffective remedial action inplace.

Problem Solving

Acts on own initiative to solvework problems when theyarise, but knows when andhow to seek guidance. Usesand interprets manuals of instruction correctly. Does notexceed limits of authority.

Able to solve problems for self and team largely using owninitiative. Uses discretioneffectively within delegatedlimits. Acts as anapproachable, expert source of help for subordinates.

Able to solve major problemson own initiative. Placesproblems appropriately withinthe strategic framework for theorganisation. Acts and is seenby subordinates as an effectiveresolver of major problems.

Able to resolve complex animportant problems involvimajor internal and externastakeholders of theorganisation. Securesmodification to strategic plwhere necessary.

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Project Management

Accepts and carries outassigned tasks according tothe project timetable andmilestones. Reports anyvariance from plan for resolution.

Manages tasks and worksegments according to theproject timetable andmilestones. Delegates tasksappropriately. Takes action toresolve variances from plan.

Sets out project plan,identifying milestones, worksegments and tasks. Assignsresources to projectcomponents. Sets up steeringarrangements and participatesin steering committee.Establishes and monitorsbusiness case. Designsimplementation plan. Ensuresadequate projectcommunication.

Sets terms of reference foproject. Approves businescase. Chairs steeringcommittee. Resolves majovariances in project plan.Aligns project with other projects. Ensures accounttaken of stakeholder intereApproves implementation Ensures business case me

Implementation

Implement procedures andprocesses defined according tothe timetable set.

Schedules implementationtasks according to theimplementation plan contentand timetable. Takes action toresolve technical and timetablematters within competence.Provides scheduled reports on

implementation progress.

Drafts implementation plan andassigns cash and other resources. Receives reports onimplementation progress andtakes action to resolve delaysor other. Monitors businesscase for the implementation.

Approves the implementatplan. Approves the businecase and the resourceallocation. Receives periodreports on progress and ocompletion.

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Self-Improvement

Sets work in an appropriatecontext. Develops awarenessof written procedures andmanuals. Seeks to achievetechnical expertise. Curiousabout the broader aspects of the work.

Balances technical andmanagement skills. Readstechnical and managementliterature. Shows an interest inteam management skills aswell As larger managementissues. Attends lectures andseminars given theopportunity.

Sets time aside for technicaland management reading, anddoes so widely, well beyondthe confines of the job.Participates in conferences,seminars and lectures whenthey are offered and preparesin advance.

Ensures fully up to date wthe theory and practice of Government and of management. Reads natioand international journals disseminates them. Frequattendee at conferences aseminars and takes pains communicate informationwithin command.

Analysis and synthesis

Able to provide an adequateanalysis of the issuesencountered in daily work andto synthesise action to meetthem.

Able to analyse issues using aSWOT or other appropriateanalysis tools. Able tounderstand investmentappraisal, including NetPresent Value and InternalRate of Return. Able toconstruct simple decisioncharts. Able to calculate and

apply manpower and other costing. Able to summariseand synthesise data and other information accurately.

Effective at analysing issuesusing an appropriate analysistool. Able to constructinvestment appraisals and costbenefit analyses. Able to applytests of validity to numericaldata. Able to constructcomplex decision charts. Ableto apply manpower and other

costing. Aware of differentmodels of strategic planningand able to choose a best fitwith the organisation. Able toreconcile data and informationfrom different sources and tosynthesise it into a coherentsingle document.

Able to analyse and synthaccurately at the strategic whole organisation level.Familiarity with the output relevant analytical tools anable to assess their relevaand their strengths andweaknesses in a particulaapplication.

Creativity and initiative

Able to see beneath the Looks for underlying problems A lateral thinker when the Highly creative and willing

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surface of an issue to theunderlying problem. Able todevelop innovative ways of resolving the problem usingown initiative. Flexible inapproach and attitude.

and consistently comes up withnew and more effectivemethods for dealing with them.Does not apply precedentblindly. Consistently proposesnew ideas relevant to thestrategy and operation of theorganisation. Acts on owninitiative within the limits of authority.

occasion demands.Consistently looks for new andbetter ways of doing the workand is persistent in carryingideas through to fruition.Welcomes new ideas andencourages people to bringthem forward

make decisions and standthem. Receptive to the ideothers and gives them crefor their initiative. Can be rupon to think round a proband to come up with a fresapproach where necessar

Planning and strategiccapacity

Aware of the general plans andthe strategy of theorganisation. Knows how ownwork fits in to the broader perspective

Aware of the general plans andthe strategy of theorganisation. Knows how ownwork fits into the broader perspective.

Understands the strategicplanning process and thecontribution to be made fromthe post. Knows the mission,ethics, objectives and strategicplan of the organisation.Contributes ideas andsuggestions at appropriatestages in the planning andstrategy process. Ensureswork of self and team aligns

with plans and strategy.

Understands the theory anpractice of strategic planniCan judge the appropriateof top-down, bottom up anmixed planning in relation organisational character.Knows the planning andstrategy process in use indetail and contributes stroto it,

Independence of action

Works well on own initiativeand with minimum of direction.Observes correct limits of action.

Plans work of self and of teamwith minimum of guidance.Meets day to day problemswith well thought out solutions.Aware of limits set by theoperational and strategic plansof the organisation.

Works mainly on own initiativewith very little guidanceneeded. Plans, develops anddelivers new work within theframework of theorganisation’s operational andstrategic plan. Contributesstrongly to those plans on own

Works on own initiative witonly strategic guidance.Strongly motivated self-staForesees and overcomesproblems with well thoughsolutions

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initiative.Team working

An effective and loyal teamworker. Able to put the good of the team above self-interest.Contributes ideas to improvethe working of the team.

An effective and committedteam leader. Understands andapplies team motivation andcommunication. Takesresponsibility for team actions.Aware of team’s contribution tothe larger organisational effort.

An effective and committedmanager. Sets, maintains andcommunicates realistic workobjectives. Aware of the theoryand practice of working inteams. Takes responsibilitywhen things go wrong. Placesteam work in an appropriateorganisational perspective.

Creates an appropriateenvironment for successfuteam working. Delegates tand resources effectively.Empowers staff appropriatActs as a point of finalreference for problems. Hivisible manager.

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Counselling skills

Counselling of clients inaccordance with jobspecification. Understands andcan apply basic interviewingtechniques. Understandslimitations and difficulties of oral communication.

Able to interview clientssuccessfully in difficultsituations in accordance with job specification. Able to guideand mentor team memberseffectively. Understands theoryand practice of interviewingand applies them consistently.Active listener. Able to act asan effective change agent

Skilled counsellor of staff andothers. Understands andapplies consistently the theoryand practice of goodinterviewing. Active listener.Able to act as an effectivechange champion.

Skilled counsellor of staff aothers. Understands andapplies consistently the theand practice of goodinterviewing. Active listeneAble to act as an effectivechange sponsor.

Capacity for guidance

Has required technicalknowledge for job function andcan use it effectively to provideaccurate and concise guidanceto those affected.

High level of technicalknowledge related to jobfunction and can use iteffectively to provide accurateand concise guidance to staff and clients. Acts as aparticipative team leader andachieves results through

effective mentoring.

High level of technicalknowledge and of the generalcontent of publicadministration. Usesknowledge effectively to guidestaff in the wider aspects of their work. A participativemanager who achieves results

through effective mentoring.

An acknowledged expert iwork of the public institutioand in public administratioProvides effective guidancstaff and others based onexperience and knowledgeAchieves results throughparticipation and mentorin

Respect for the law

Understands and properlyapplies the rule of law. Awareof the constitutional provisionsrelevant to the civil service andof the organic law and legalinstruments relevant to thepost held.



Understands and properlyapplies the rule of law. Awof the constitutional provisrelevant to the civil serviceof the organic law and legainstruments relevant to thepost held

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Conduct

Correctly observes the ethicaland disciplinary normsapplicable to the civil serviceand to the public institution inwhich the duties areperformed. Attends workduring the prescribed hoursand works diligently during theperiod of attendance.Maintains the required degreeof confidentiality.Demonstrates appropriateloyalty to the employinginstitution and to superiors..

Correctly observes the ethicaland disciplinary normsapplicable to the civil serviceand to the public institution inwhich the duties areperformed. Attends workduring the prescribed hoursand works diligently during theperiod of attendance.Maintains the required degreeof confidentiality.Demonstrates appropriateloyalty to the employinginstitution and to superiorsand juniors.

Correctly observes the ethicaland disciplinary normsapplicable to the civil serviceand to the public institution inwhich the duties areperformed. Attends workduring the prescribed hoursand works diligently during theperiod of attendance.Maintains the required degreeof confidentiality.Demonstrates appropriateloyalty to the employinginstitution and to superiorsand juniors.

Correctly observes the ethicaand disciplinary normsapplicable to the civil serviceand to the public institution inwhich the duties areperformed. Attends workduring the prescribed hoursand works diligently during thperiod of attendance.Maintains the required degreof confidentiality.Demonstrates appropriateloyalty to the employinginstitution and to superiorsand juniors.

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Organisational Skills

Organises own workload witha correct regard to priorities.Knows the impact of personalwork on other organisationalunits. Knows when and whereto seek advice and help

Organises work of self andteam. Sets realistic targetsand deadlines. Monitors workin progress effectively againsttimetable and milestones.Prepares staff and resourcecosting for new initiatives.

Manages operational andstrategic tasks according totimetable, milestones andbudget. Delegates tasks andresources effectively andempowers junior managerssufficiently. Takes proper account of the effect of decisions on other parts of theorganisation and modifiesaction if necessary. Planseffectively for the medium andlong-term, as well as theshort-term.

Prepares effective strategicand operational plans takingproper account of availablemanpower and other budgetSets effective timetables for action including milestonesand reporting points.Delegates effectively. Takesproper account of the effect odecisions across theorganisation and modifiesplans if necessary. Draws anappropriate balance betweenoperational imperatives andmedium and long-term plans

Leadership Skills

Able to work effectively as aleader of small ad hoc workingteams giving appropriate lead

and guidance to members.

Understands and appliestheory and practice of smallgroup behaviour. Leads by

personal example. Motivatesusing appropriate emotionalreward. Sets short-term,stretch-targets for staff andacknowledges achievement.

Provides a appropriate taskstructure for staff to workwithin. Identifies strategic and

operational imperatives andtransforms them into definedand aligned tasks withtimetables, milestones andstaff and other budgets.Provides for effectivemonitoring of tasks andacknowledges achievementand effort. Identifies andarranges to meet trainingneeds.

Articulates a clear vision for the organisation. Sets anappropriate mission and

supports it with effectivestrategic planning and goalsetting. Ensures that strategyand goals align with availablebudgets. Undertakesstakeholder analysis andmodifies plans and goalswhen necessary. Ensureseffective communication of thvision, mission, strategic plaand objectives.

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Co-ordination skills

Takes account of the possibleimpact of work on other members of the team and onother teams. Anticipatesproblems that might arise andeither resolves them or seeksadvice from team leader.

Balances workloadappropriately across team.Gives clear direction aboutpriorities. Allocates workeffectively to meet goals.Provides for effectivecommunication laterally andvertically. Providesappropriate feedback.

Sub-divides central objectivesinto work components, worksegments tasks and activitiesand allocates them correctly.Co-ordinates activity using atask plan incorporatingmilestones Achieves strongvertical and lateralcommunication. Takesaccount of impact of the workon other parts of theorganisation and revises workschedules as necessary.

Sets strategic and operationaplans correctly within thecontext of the plans for theorganisation as a whole. Setand communicates correctpriorities and puts appropriatmonitoring arrangements inplace. Co-ordinates activitiescorrectly with peers,subordinates and superiors

Controlling skills

Takes positive action tocontrol workflow according toestablished priorities. Seeksguidance when prioritiesclash.

Monitors work flow objectivelyagainst established plans andstandards. Mentors effectivelystaff falling below standard.Suggests and arrangesremedial training when

necessary. Specificallyacknowledges good results.

Promulgates and maintainswork plans that allow progressto be monitored andmeasured. Acts as aneffective mentor whencircumstances require.

Arranges training when newskills are required. Does notaccept poor quality workwithout intervention.Specifically acknowledgesgood results

Controls work at a strategicand objective setting level.Resists personal involvemenin matters delegated to alower level of responsibility,but monitors output and

results against the milestoneand timetable of the strategicplan. Fosters new initiativesby others and specificallyacknowledges good results.Does not accept poor qualitywork without intervention witthe senior manager involved

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Ability to obtain best resultsfrom the team

Leads small ad hoc groupseffectively when required todo so. Communicatesobjectives and pursues themin a structured way.

Manages team paying correctattention to the dynamics of small groups. Employs aparticipative and inclusivestyle in which new ideas areencouraged and valued. Usesobjective methods to judgeperformance. Sets andcommunicates high personalstandards. Poor standard of work triggers positive remedialaction.

Understands range of management options andchooses form and styleappropriate to span of command and control.Encourages and is receptiveto new ideas and initiativesconsistent with the strategicplan for the organisation. Setsand communicates highpersonal standards. Judgesperformance objectively andpraises achievement. Poor standard of work triggerspositive remedial action.

Sets a clear vision, missionand strategy that is achievabwithin the resources availablDelegates responsibility andmatching resources alignedwith the capacity of subordinates to manage themSets and communicates highpersonal standards. Is presein a crisis and initiateseffective action to resolve it.Judges the performance of subordinates objectively andpraises achievement. Poor standard of work triggerspositive remedial action.Accessible to staff and will aas their champion whennecessary.

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Decision makingcompetence

Manages own workloadeffectively and decidespriorities correctly. Identifiespossible impacts oncolleagues or on other unitsand brings them to attention.

Makes objective decisionsand records the rationale.Able to use common decisionsupport tools such as SWOTanalyses and simple decisiontrees. Uses numerical andother data correctly to supportdecisions. Familiar with Ganttcharts and PERT charts.Understands critical pathanalysis. Understands thelegal framework for decisionsand acts within it. Takesresponsibility for decisions.

Able to make an informedchoice between commondecision support toolsincluding SWOT analyses,decision trees, critical pathanalysis, Gantt and PERTcharts, Program Budgeting,Investment Appraisal andCost Benefit Analysis.Undertakes stakeholder analysis when necessary.Able to undertake policyanalysis of complex issues,reconciling a range of differentviewpoints, and reaching awell-argued conclusion. Ableto draw correct inferencesfrom complex statistical andfinancial data, and to identifygaps. Sets decisions correctlyin their legal framework.

Takes responsibility for decisions

Makes rapid, robust andsoundly based decisionsproperly supported byargument and made at theright time. Able to make aninformed judgement about thsuitability of techniques usedto derive information on whicdecisions are based. Takesaccount of the effect of decisions on peer group andon the broader organisation.Brings in other to the decisiomaking process if necessaryDecisions always in fullaccordance with the law.Takes responsibility for decisions.

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Delegation Skills

Effective at distributing taskswithin ad hoc working groups.Takes proper account of thecapacities and work-loads of team members.

Delegates work to teammembers with clear instructions for itsperformance. Sets appropriatetimetables and deadlines.Mentors staff as necessary toachieve targets.

Delegates work and resourcesto complete tasks according totimetable and deadlines.Establishes and maintains amonitoring plan and checksprogress against milestones.

Delegates tasks withnecessary resources andresponsibilities and inaccordance with strategicplan. Receives reports onprogress against milestonesand initiates remedial actionwhere necessary. Does notinterfere in performance of day to day tasks.

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Human ResourceManagement

Not applicableUnderstands and appliesestablished human resourcepolicies with respect to team.Identifies strengths andweaknesses in performanceand completes fair and well- justified performanceappraisal reports. Identifiesand plans to meet trainingneeds for new skills. Acts asan effective mentor. Makes arecommendation for disciplinary sanctions whereappropriate.

Understands and appliesestablished human resourcepolicies. Identifies strengthsand weaknesses inperformance and completesfair and well-justifiedperformance appraisalreports. Acts as an effectivesecond signatory to reports.Carries out effectiveperformance appraisalinterviews Identifies and plansto meet training needs for newskills. Acts as an effectivementor. Initiates disciplinaryaction where necessary.Makes an accurate estimateof the manpower cost of newand continuing work.Maintains an accurate and upto date manpower plan.

Understands and applies thestablished human relationspolicies of the institution.Contributes positively to theifurther development whennecessary. Ensures thosepolicies are understood andproperly applied within unit ocommand. Completes fair anwell-justified performanceappraisal reports and acts asan effective second signatoryCarries out effective appraisainterviews. Approves requesfor additional training.Approves disciplinary actionwhere necessary. Ensuresthat new and continuing woris properly costed and that aeffective manpower plan ismaintained and monitored.

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Capacity to developpersonnel skills

Understand personnel theoryand practice related to the jobfunction. Reacts positively totraining and mentoring. Eager to acquire new skills andexperience.

Identifies opportunities for improvement of self andothers. Understands thebasics of personnelmanagement theory andpractice. Sees training andmentoring as an importantpart of responsibilities.Understands group dynamicsand the role of feedback.Presents staff with challengingwork opportunities.

Understands personnelmanagement theory andpractice and applies iteffectively. Employs wellthought out strategies for personnel developmentincluding job-rotation, traininginside and outside theinstitution, and mentoring.Sets appropriate stretch-targets for staff. Providesappropriate reinforcement tomaintain high performance.

Has developed a highlevel of knowledgeconcerning personneltheory and practice. Hasan active personnel planin use that provides for planned job rotation andplanned training. Setshigh but achievablestandards of effectiveness for staff.Motivates staff bypersonal example andby use of positivereinforcementmechanisms.

Competence in managingresources

Manages personal timeeffectively and worksdiligently. Uses officeequipment and suppliescorrectly and without waste.

Understands governmentestimating and budget cycle.Understands and appliesprinciple of separation of authorisation and payment.Prepares and maintainsresources budget. Preparesand maintains accurateaccounts of expenditure andreceipt. Uses resourcesefficiently and monitors

Expert knowledge of government estimating andbudget cycle. Able to interpretand use national incomeaccounts. Understandsinput/output analyses.Reviews and consolidatesresource budgets. Ensurescompliance with financialstandards by staff. Usesresources efficiently and

Expert knowledge of government estimatingand budget cycle.Understands nationalincome accounts.Understandsinput/output analyses.General familiarity withmacroeconomicindicators. Delegatesbudgets effectively and

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expenditure against budget,ensuring compliance.

Where appropriate,understands basic principlesof accounts and double entrybookkeeping. Able toconstruct and interpretbalance sheets and to prepareand interpret trading and profitand loss accounts.Understands and can applysimple accounting ratios

monitors expenditures againstbudget, achieving compliance.

Where appropriate,understands principles of accounts and double entrybookkeeping. Able to analysecomplex balance sheets. Ableto analyse complex tradingaccounts and profit and lossaccounts. Understands andcan apply commonly usedaccounting ratios

ensures accurate andcorrect accounting.Monitors expenditureagainst budget usingappropriate expenditureprofiles. Takes timelyremedial action whenneeded.Where appropriate. Ableto analyse and interpretcomplex commercialaccounts and to applycommon test ratios.

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Training abilities

Able to act as an effectivementor for less experiencedcolleagues when required todo so.

Identifies training needsaccurately. Able to identifytraining sources and their cost. Makes effectivecost/value decisions andrecommendations regardingtraining. Able to act as aneffective mentor and trainer asrequired. Understandsfundamentals of traininganalysis and design.

Training oriented. Acts onrecommendations for trainingon best-fit basis and withproper regard to cost. Able toact as mentor and as a trainer for small and large groups.Effective training analyst anddesigner

Ensures that all staff arecorrectly trained for their responsibilities.Conducts gap analysesof requirements againstcapabilities. Makescorrect decisionsregarding training supplyhaving regard to costs.Ensures skills acquiredby training are broughtinto effective use. Aneffective public speaker and seminar leader.

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Mediation and negotiation

Acts as an effectiveparticipant in meetings. Makespoints that are succinct andmaterial and that assist inreaching a conclusion. Draftseffective agendas for meetings. Prepares effectivenotes of meetings that areconcise and accurate.Identifies and assigns actionpoints correctly and takesappropriate follow up action.

Able to carry out effectivemediation and negotiation withteam and with peers. Sets outa plan of objectives withreserve positions. Adopts anon-confrontational style. Ableto act effectively as a member and chairman of meetings.Sets an appropriate agenda.Makes contributions thatmove towards an effectiveconclusion. Summarisespoints of discussionaccurately. Provides clear action points. Preparesaccurate and concise minutes.

An effective mediator andnegotiator in small and largegroups. Sets out a plan of objectives with reservepositions. Adopts a non-confrontational style andshows flexibility while holdingto central points. Ensuresmeetings have an appropriateagenda and time allocation.Speaks to the point andcarries issues towards aconclusion. Summarisespoints of view and discussionaccurately. Ensures that clear action points emerge attachedto a nominated individual.

An effective mediator and negotiator at anylevel. Prepares positionsand fallbacks inadvance. Skilled atreconciling opposingpoints of view. Ensuresthat meetings have anappropriate agenda andtimetable and holds tothem. Adopts a non-confrontational style, butmaintains essentialpositions. Summarisespoints of view anddiscussion accurately.Ensures that clear actionpoints emerge attachedto a nominatedindividual.

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Appraisal objectivity

Prepares draft job planaccurately and sets anappropriate timetable for activities. Identifiesappropriate performancemeasures for discussion.

Finalises draft job plans for team. Prepares performanceappraisal objectively withproper regard to the law andto the performance criteria setout for the work beingappraised. Makesrecommendations for performance related pay andbonuses.

Acts as first signatory for those reporting directly. Actsas second signatory for staff two levels below. Makesappraisals objectively withproper regard to the law andto the performance criteria setout for the work beingappraised. Determinesperformance pay and bonusesfor those for whom he acts assecond signatory. Makesrecommendations regardingthe performance pay andbonuses for those for whomhe acts as first signatory.

Completes performanceappraisal objectivelywith proper regard to thelaw and to theperformance criteria for the work beingappraised. Ensuresconsistency of reportingstandards across theorganisation for whichhe is responsible.Determines performancepay and bonuses

Change Management

Flexible and adaptive tochange. Accepts theambiguity that arises from

change. Works co-operativelywith others to make change asuccess.

Acts as an effective changeagent. Understands theorganisational dynamics of

change. Understands thedifficulties of attitudinal andcultural change. Develops andcarries through plans toachieve change. Facilitatesteam learning andcommunicates clearly whatpeople are expected to dodifferently.

Acts as an effective changechampion. Builds andnegotiates successful change

plans. Establishes structuresand processes to facilitate theembedding of change.Addresses resistance tochange and shows empathywith those who feeldiscomfited by change.

Acts as an effectivechange sponsor andinitiator. Shows

consistent support for innovation and for changes needed toimprove organisationaleffectiveness.Negotiates agreementswith major stakeholdersaffected by change.

Ramboll Management Monday, 17 May 2004

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Legal Advisor (Junior)

Senior Legal Advisor (Assistant)

Managing Legal Advisor (Chef)

Senior ManagingLegal Advisor (Director)

Core Competencies

Drafting primary andsecondary legislation and

other legal instruments.∗

Conducting legal researchwith regard to the issues thatwill be subject to further legislation. Drafting Memosrelated to:

(a) legal obstacles thatmight be encountered;

(b) legal comparativeanalysis;

(c) analysis of legalstudies.

Drafting sketches of primaryand secondary legislation.

Drafting primary andsecondary legislation. Ableto deal effectively with morecomplex drafting. Able to addvalue to texts prepared by juniors.

Able to deal effectively withmost complex and sensitivedrafting. Able to draftaccurately at speed. Able toadd significant value to thedrafts of others.Able to cooperate with legaladvisors from ministries andpublic institutions havingrelated interests in draftinglegislation.

Able to asses constitutionalissues in the process of drafting legislation.

Polished and effective draftiDrafts fluently and conciselyhigh speed. Able to weigh areconcile differing points of vin a concise and accurmanner. Is looked upon as exemplar of good drafting.Able to adjust legal constraintsspecific objectives that refrom the Government ProgramCapability to promote the d

legislation before higgovernmental bodies and testify in hearings befparliamentarian standcommittees.

Applicable only for legal advisors from the Legal Department of public authority or institution.

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Drafting commercial and civil

agreements∗

Conducting research on legalissues that will be subject toagreements.

Drafting commercial and civilagreements. Able to draftspecific clauses of agreements in accordancewith the public institutionspecific interests. Able toadd value to texts preparedby juniors.

Able to deal effectively withmost complex and sensitivedrafting. Able to draftaccurately at speed. Able toadd significant value to thedrafts of others.

Polished and effective draftingDrafts fluently and concisely athigh speed. Able to weigh andreconcile differing points of viein a concise and accuratemanner. Is looked upon as anexemplar of good drafting.Able to adjust legal constraintsthe commercial needs of a pubinstitution.

Written work∗

Ability to draft memos onvarious legal issues, using theappropriate legal concepts andto find legal solutions for different problems encounteredin the day-to-day activity of thepublic institution.

Able to deal with morecomplex drafting, adequatelymeeting the needs of thepublic institution. Ability tosynthesize texts fromdisparate sources. Able toprepare accurate summariesof complex material. Able to

add value to texts preparedby juniors.

Marked facility in the use of legal language. Able to dealeffectively with the mostcomplex and sensitivedrafting, fully meeting theneeds of the publicinstitution. Able to draftaccurately at speed. Able to

add significant value to thedrafts of others.

Polished and effective draftiDrafts fluently and conciselyhigh speed. Able to weigh areconcile differing points of vin a concise and accurmanner. Is looked upon as exemplar of good drafting.Able to draft legal articles a

studies in Law journals.

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Competence before the

courts∗

Able to sustain before thecourts the interests of thepublic institution by usingappropriate legal means.

Able to deal effectively withmost complex issues arisingin the course of a trial.

Able to deal effectively withmost complex and sensitiveissues arising in the courseof a trial. Able to proper dialogue and negotiate withthe counter party.

Able to weigh and recondiffering points of view inconcise and accurate mannExcellent oratory skills. Is lookupon as an exemplar proficiency.

mplementation of the primary andsecondary legislation and

other legal instruments∗

Conducting legal research regardingthe proper implementation of legislation.

Capability to identify obviousand hidden obstacles in theprocess of implementation.Capability to foreseelitigation resulting in theimplementation process.

Able to prepare provisorysolutions in the process of implementation in case of barriers which cannot becancelled in a quicklegislative approach.

Capability to send alertsthe minister (head public institution) in orto eliminate by legislatmeans any obstacles tmight occur in implementation process

Implementation of EU legislation∗

Not applicable

Not applicable Able to comprehend andmake proposals for theimplementation of EUlegislation.Able to interact with EUconsultants.

Able to comprehend amake proposals for implementation of legislation.Able to interact with EUconsultants.

∗Applicable also for legal advisors from other departments of public authority or institution.

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Ethics∗

Understands and abides by theethical standards set forth by thelegislation regulating the activity of legal advisors, the organization andthe civil service.

Understands and abides by theethical standards set forth bythe legislation regulating theactivity of the legal advisers,the organization and the civilservice. Acts as an ethicalexample to juniors.

Understands and abides bythe ethical standards set forthby the legislation regulatingthe activity of the legaladvisers, the organization andthe civil service. Can be reliedon for sound ethical advice incomplex situations.

Understands and abidby the ethical standaset forth by the legislatregulating the activitythe legal advisers, organization and the cservice. Ensures that sound ethical standapermeate organization. Acts assource of sound ethadvice in compsituations.

Oral competence∗

Competent in one to onesituations and in small groups.Speaks to the point, usingaccurate and appropriatelanguage, having a good use of the specific legal language.

Competent in one to onesituations, in small groups andas a staff manager. Ability tosummarize discussionscogently and accurately.Contributes points that carry

discussions forward. Ability toclearly point out and sustain thepublic institutions interests inrelations to third parties.

Very effective in one to onesituations in small and largegroups and as a staff manager. Able to contributepositively in formal andinformal situations. An

effective speechmaker.Shows marked ability tosynthesize complexdiscussions and to framecontributions that lead to aneffective conclusion.

An effective communicain any situation, formainformal. Punctilious in use of languaFacilitates asynthesizes

contribution of otheAdept at assistdiscussion to conclusion. Looked onan exceptionally effeccommunicator.

General PC Based Computer

Skills∗

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Able to use Windows (or other)operating system for efficient filemanagement, transfer and copyingof files. Able to use word processingsoftware for the preparation andamendment of documents, includingthe incorporation of tables. Able toprepare and format simplespreadsheets and to generatehistograms. Able to use e-mail andweb-browser.

Able to use Windows (or other)operating systemcomprehensively. Able to useword processing softwarecomprehensively. Able toprepare complex spreadsheetsincluding the use of basicformulas and to generatehistograms. Able to use e-mailand web-browser.

Able to use Windows (or other) operating system.Able to create, access andamend documents usingword processor. Able toaccess and amendspreadsheets. Able to usee-mail and web browser.

Able to use Windows (oother) operating systemAble to access and ameword-processeddocuments. Able toaccess and amendspreadsheets. Able to ue-mail and web-browse

ACCOUNTANCY/FINANCE STAFF

Executant Chief of Bureau Director Director General +

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Core Competencies

Ethics

Understands and abides by theethical standards set for theorganisation and the civilservice.

Understands and abides by the ethicalstandards set for the organisation andthe civil service. Acts as an ethicalexample to juniors.

Understands and abides bythe ethical standards set for the organisation and the civilservice. Can be relied upon

for sound ethical advice incomplex situations.

Understands and abideby the ethical standardsset for the organisationand the civil service.

Ensures that sound ethistandards permeate theorganisation. Acts as asource of sound ethicaladvice in complexsituations.

Number Skills

Able to perform arithmeticalfunctions, includingpercentages and averagesusing a calculator. Able toconstruct and interpret simpletables. Able to displayinformation in graph andhistogram formats.

Able to perform arithmetical functionsincluding percentages and averages,using a calculator or computingmanually. Able to prepare and analysesimple tables using standard softwareor manually. Able to prepare and

analyse graphs and histograms.Understands normal and skeweddistributions.

Marked facility with figures.Able to construct and interpretcomplex data tables andspreadsheets. Able tointerpret graphs andhistograms and to understand

underlying principles. Able toprovide advice and guidanceon data related issues.

Uses appropriate dataroutinely and accuratelyAble to specify datarequirements accuratelyUnderstandsspreadsheets, graphs a

histograms. Able to direand control generalnumber related work

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General computer skills

Able to use Windows (or other)operating system for efficientfile management, transfer andcopying of files. Able to useword processing software for the preparation andamendment of documents,including the incorporation of tables. Able to prepare andformat simple spreadsheetsand to generate histograms.Able to use e-mail and webbrowser.

Able to use Windows (or other)operating system for efficient filemanagement, transfer and copying of files. Able to use word processingsoftware for the preparation andamendment of Documents including the incorporationof tables. Able to prepare and formatcomplex spreadsheets, including theuse of common formulas, and togenerate histograms. Able to use e-mail and web browser.

Able to use Windows (or other) operating system. Ableto create and amenddocuments using wordprocessing software. Able tocreate and amend complexspreadsheets. Able to use e-mail and web browser.

Knowledge of specificaccountancy software

Able to use job specificsoftware related to recordingand analysing receipts andpayments and to the paymentof salaries and wages,

including statutory and non-statutory deductions. Able togenerate required summaryreports and analyses.

Able to use and supervise the use of job specific software used for recording and analysing receipts andpayments and to the payment of salary and wages including statutory

and non-statutory deductions. Able tospecify and generate requiredsummary reports and analyses and toreconcile and interpret them.

Aware of the capabilities andrequirements of job specificsoftware. Able to specifysummary reports andanalyses that might be

required. Able to interpretreports and accounts and toensure that disbursementsand receipts have beenproperly accounted for.Assumes responsibility for thework of those reporting tohim/her.

Aware of capabilities anrequirements of jobspecific software in useAble to specify summarreports and analyses. A

to interpret reports andaccounts and to ensurethat disbursements andreceipts have beenproperly accounted for.Assumes overallresponsibility for work osubordinates.

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Knowledge of principles of Government Accounting.

Aware of and consistentlyapplies the established rules of Government accounting.Applies the principle of separation of function betweenauthorisation and payment.

Ensures that there is specificauthority before payment.Ensures that all payments andreceipts are properly supportedby vouchers and posted to thecorrect sub-heading of thebudget..

Aware of and consistently applies theestablished rules of Governmentaccounting and ensures that they areproperly applied by subordinates.Carries out routine finance checks toensure separation of payment andauthorisation, to ensure that paymentsare only being made in accordancewith written authorities, and that thereis correct posting of receipts andpayments to the correct heading of thebudget.Carries out audit and test checkprocedures as required by the dutiesof the post

Aware of and consistentlyapplies the established rulesof Government accountingand ensures that they arefollowed by subordinates.Carries out routine andrandom finance checks toensure compliance withaccounting rules. Carries outaudit functions as required bythe post includingreconciliations of cash andbank accounts and the proper maintenance of ledger andother accounts againstvouchers.

Aware of and consistenapplies the establishedrules of Governmentaccounting and ensuresthat they are followed bysubordinates. Carries oaudit and test checkfunctions as required bythe post. Provides auditreports and certificationin accordance with theaccounts.

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Knowledge of GovernmentNational IncomeAccounting (SpecificMinistries and organs of Government only)

Able to assign data to accountheadings using spreadsheet or subject specific software. Able

to generate tables andhistograms. Understandsfunction of national incomeaccounts and how the specific job relates to these functions.

Able to supervise the assignment of data to account headings usingspreadsheet or subject specificsoftware. Able to test-check and auditdata assignment. Able to generatetables, histograms and associatedreports. Understands the function anduse of national income accounts andthe main components of their construction.

Fully conversant with thestructure and function of national income accounts.Able to extract andsummarise elements of theaccount. Able to presentmaterial in tabular, graphic or histogram forms.Understands the differentbases of year on year comparison.

Fully conversant with thstructure and function onational income accounAble to specify andsupervise data extractioand presentation.Understands generalprinciples of macroeconomic theory.

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Knowledge of double entryaccounting. (SpecificMinistries and institutionsand agencies only.

Understands general principlesof double entry system.Understands use of journal andof real and nominal accounts.

Can construct a trial balance.Understands trading accountand profit and loss account.Understands balance sheet.Able to use standardbookkeeping software

Understands general principles of double entry system. Understands useof journal and of real and nominalaccounts. Understands principles of trial balance. Understands tradingaccount and profit and loss account.Understands different methods of asset depreciation. Understandsaccruals. Understands balance sheet.Able to apply simple accounting ratios.Able to use standard bookkeepingsoftware.

Understands generalprinciples of double entrysystem. Able to read journal,real and nominal ledger,trading account and profit andloss account and balancesheet for sole trader,partnerships and registeredcompanies. Understandsaccrual, different depreciationmethods and the creation of reserve accounts. Able toapply test ratios to accounts.Familiar with standardbookkeeping software.

Understands generalprinciples of double entrsystem. Able to readtrading accounts, profitand loss account andbalance sheet for soletraders, partnerships ancompanies. Able to appand use generalaccounting ratios. Famiwith standardbookkeeping software.

Knowledge of computerisedaccounting

Able to use job specificsoftware for recordingpayments and receipts and for the production of reconciliationsreports and analyses.

Able to use and to tutor subordinatesin the use of job specific software for the recording and reconciliation of receipts and payments, including bankand cash accounts. Able to specifyand to analyse reports and summariesgenerated.

Understands software in usefor the recording of receiptsand payments and for thepreparation of reconciliationsreports and analyses. Able tounderstand and analyse theoutputs of the system.

Understands software inuse for the recording of receipts and paymentsand for the preparation reconciliations reports aanayses. Able tounderstand and analysethe outputs of the syste

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Knowledge of investmentappraisal (DefinedMinistries, institutions andagencies only)

Understands general principlesof investment appraisal usingpayback periods, return oncapital employed and

discounted cash flow, includinginternal rate of return. Able touse appropriate softwareincluding spreadsheet software.

Understands general principles of investment appraisal using pay-backperiods, return on capital employedand discounted cash flow, includinginternal rate of return. Able to selectbetween projects on the basis of investment appraisal. Able to computegraphs for different investmentstreams. Able to apply straightforwardrisk analysis. Able to use appropriatesoftware including spreadsheets.

Understands the generalprinciples of investmentappraisal and can make aninformed choice about whichtechnique should be used.Able to supervise and mentor staff using the techniques.Able to select appropriatediscount factors for test. Ableto select between projects onbasis of most appropriatetechnique. Able to apply riskanalysis to outcomes.Understand softwareincluding spreadsheets.

Understands the generaprinciples of investmentappraisal and can makean informed choice abowhich technique shouldused. Understands andapplies appropriatetechniques for riskassessment. Selectsappropriate discountfactors for test.Understands thelimitations and advantagof different appraisaltechniques and can seleappropriately. Fullyconversant with riskanalysis applied toinvestment appraisal.

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LAW REGARDING PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Law 188/99

Article 58

(1) Individual performance assessments of civil servants shall be performedon an annual basis.

(2) The assessment procedures shall be performed for the followingpurposes:

a. promotion to higher pay ranks;b. promotion on the pay scale;c. promotion to a higher public position;d. dismissal from a public position;e. establishing the needs for professional development of civil

servants.

(3) The following grades shall be awarded following the assessment process:‘excellent’, ‘very good’, ‘good’, ‘satisfactory’, ‘unsatisfactory’.(4) The assessment of the individual professional performance of high ranking

civil servants shall be conducted by an assessment commission made upof five personalities who are outstanding public administration specialists,proposed by the Public Administration Minister and appointed by thePrime Minister.

(5) The methods for the assessment of the individual professionalperformance of civil servants shall be approved by the Government in aresolution following the suggestions of the National Agency of CivilServants and by consultation with the trade union organisations of civil

servants that are representative nationwide.

Decision regarding the organisation and the development of the civilservant’s career

Promotion on the pay scale

Article 50

The civil servant promotes on the pay scale corresponding to the public positionheld upon law regarding the establishing of a unitary pay system for the civilservants on the basis of the following cumulated criteria:

a. the score obtained at the annual evaluation of the individualprofessional performance;

b. not having been subject to a disciplinary sanction in the last year;c. the seniority on the pay scale from which he is about to be

promoted.

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Methodology for the evaluation of the individual professional performanceof civil servants

Article 1

(1) The procedure for the evaluation of individual professional performanceshall apply to every civil servant considering the individual responsibilitiesin the job description.

(2) The main elements to be taken into account when the job description ismade are provided in the model in point 2 of this annex.

Article 2

The individual professional performance of civil servants shall be evaluated byreferring the performance standards to the degree of fulfillment of the individualtasks set for the evaluated period.

Article 3

(1) The evaluated period shall be between December 1 and November 30 of the next year.

(2) The evaluation period shall be between December 1 and December 15 of the year after the one for which the individual performance of the civilservant is evaluated.

(3) As an exception, the individual professional civil servant shall beevaluated during the evaluated period in the following cases:

• When during the evaluated period the civil servant’s work relations

cease, suspend or change, under the law. In this case the civilservant shall be evaluated for the period before the cessation,suspension or changing of the work relations. In establishing anannual grade account shall be taken, depending on the specificityof the tasks included in the job description, of the grade obtainedbefore the cessation, suspension or changing of the work relations.

• When during the evaluated period the work relations of the civilservant, who holds a leading public position or a public positioncorresponding to the high civil servants category cease, suspend or change under the law. In this case the leading civil servant mustbefore ceasing, suspending or changing the work relationship,

within 15 days from the ceasing, suspending or changing the workrelationship, fulfill the evaluation of the individual professionalperformance of civil servants in a subordinate position. The gradeawarded shall be taken into account in the annual evaluation of their individual professional performance.

• When during the evaluated period the civil servant obtains a higher diploma and is to be promoted to a higher category, upon the law,to a public position corresponding to the graduated studies.

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(4) For the individual professional performance to be evaluated on an annualbasis the civil servant must have worked for at least 6 months in a publicposition, except for the cases provided for in paragraph (3).

Article 4

(1) The evaluator shall evaluate the individual professional performance of subordinated civil servants.

(2) Upon this procedure, the evaluator is:a. the leading civil servant who coordinates the department in which

the executing civil servant carries out his activity, or whocoordinates his activity.

b. The hierarchically superior leading civil servant according to theorganisational structure of the public authority or institution for theleading civil servant.

c. The high civil servant for the subordinated leading civil servants or

for the executing civil servants when they carry out their activity indepartments not coordinated by a leading civil servant or whocarries out his activity upon a dignitary’s coordination.

d. the mayor, upon the proposal of the local council, for the secretaryof the commune, town and the territorial-administrative sub-divisionof the municipalities.

Article 5

The evaluation procedure comprises the following three stages:(1) making of the evaluation report by the evaluator;

(2) interview;(3) countersigning of the evaluation report.

Article 6

(1) With a view to making the evaluation report the evaluator:a. analyses how the individual goals were fulfilled;b. notes the performance standards in terms of their importance;c. sets the final grade for the evaluation of the individual professional

performance;d. notes the ‘outstanding’ results of the civil servant, the objective

difficulties encountered during the evaluated period, and any other observations considered relevant;

e. sets the individual goals and the deadlines as well as the trainingneeds for the next period to be evaluated.

(2) The standard format of the evaluation report is provided in point 3 of thisannex.

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Article 7

(1) The individual goals are specific targets established for the next periodbased on tasks provided in the job description.

(2) The individual goals must:

a. be specific to the activities that involve the prerogatives of a publicpower;b. be quantifiable – have a concrete materialization;c. have deadlines;d. be realistic – apt to be fulfilled within the deadlines set and the

resources earmarked for them;e. be flexible – apt to be revised in terms of the changing priorities of

the respective public authority or institution.(3) Individual goals can be revised on a quarterly basis. The changes shall be

noted in a document signed by the evaluator and the civil servant to beevaluated. The document shall be annexed to the evaluation report.

Article 8

(1) The performance standards and the establishment of the final evaluationgrade shall be subject to the following stages:

a. each objective shall be noted from 1 to 5, the mark expressing thedegree of fulfilling the respective objective as regards quantity,quality and the period in which it was carried out;

b. for obtaining the mark for fulfilling the objectives, the arithmeticmean of the marks granted shall be obtained for each fulfilledobjective;

c. each performance standard shall be marked from 1 to 5, the markexpressing the appreciation of how the performance standard wasmatched in the work to fulfill the individual goals;

d. for obtaining the mark for fulfilling the performance standard, thearithmetic mean shall be obtained for each fulfilled objective;

e. for the final mark the arithmetic mean of the marks granted shall beobtained in conformity with paragraphs (b) and (d);

(2) The meaning of the marks provided in paragraph (1) points (a) and (c) isthat 1 equals the minimum level and 5 equals the highest level.

Article 9

The final grade of the evaluation is to be established on the basis of the finalmark as follows:

a. between 1.00 and 1.50 – unsatisfactory;b. between 1.51 and 2.50 – satisfactory;c. between 2.51 and 3.50 – good;d. between 3.51 and 4.50 – very good;e. between 4.51 and 5.00 – exceptional.

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Article 10

The interview as a stage in the evaluation represents an exchange of information, impressions and opinions between the evaluator and the civilservant as part of which:

a. the civil servant is appraised of the notes made by the evaluator in theevaluation report;b. in the case where there are differences of opinion between the

evaluator and the evaluated person regarding the notes made by theevaluator in the evaluation report they shall proceed to finding acommon viewpoint. The evaluator can alter the evaluation report interms of what has been established jointly with the civil servant;

c. the comments of the evaluated civil servant are noted in the evaluationreport;

d. the evaluator and the evaluated civil servant sign and date theevaluation report.

Article 11

(1) The evaluation report is forwarded to the counter-signer.(2) Upon this procedure the counter-signer is:

a. The civil servant hierarchically superior to the evaluator in theorganisational structure of the public authority or institution.Exceptionally, in the case that is not possible, a civil servanthierarchically superior to the evaluator shall be designated ascounter-signer by the civil servant who holds the highest publicposition appointed by the head of the public authority or institution

or the deputy head of the public authority or institution;b. The prefect, for the secretary of the commune, town or territorial-administrative sub-division of the municipalities.

(3) The evaluation report can be modified upon the decision of the counter-signer in the following cases:

a. the assessments to be countersigned are not realistic;b. there are differences of opinion between the evaluator and the

evaluated civil servant that could not be jointly reconciled.(4) The evaluation report as altered under paragraph (3) shall be made known

to the civil servant.

Article 12

(1) Civil servants displeased by the results of an evaluation may contest it tothe head of the public authority or institution.

(2) By way of an exception from the provisions of paragraph (1), the secretaryof the commune, town or territorial-administrative sub-division of themunicipalities who are dissatisfied with the evaluation result may appeal tothe administrative court.

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(3) The appeal shall be formulated within 5 days of the civil servant being toldof the evaluation grade awarded and shall be resolved within 15 days.

(4) The result of the appeal shall be made known to the civil servant within 5days of the settlement.

(5) Civil servants dissatisfied with the solution to the appeal claim formulated

according to paragraph (1) may appeal to the administrative courtaccording to the law.

Specific regulations regarding the evaluation of the individual professionalperformance of high civil servants

Article 13

An assessment commission made up of five personalities who are outstanding[in the field of public administration], respectively a president and four members,proposed by the Administration and Interior Minister and appointed by the Prime

Minister shall conduct the assessment of the individual professional performanceof high ranking civil servants.

Article 14

The evaluation of the individual professional performance of the high civil servantconsists of estimating, upon the report of activity of the high civil servant:

a. the manner and the level of fulfilling of the objectives established bythe head of the public authority or institution;

b. the way in which objectives have been fulfilled and the performanceobtained by the [managed] structures;

c. proposals regarding the efficiency of the [managed] structures’efficiency by identifying deficiencies in activity and means of eliminating them.

Article 15

(1) The evaluation shall be done as follows:a. Each component of the activity report provided in article 14 is

evaluated with marks from 1 to 5, the mark expressing thequantitative and qualitative estimation and the term within which ithas been realized.

b. Each performance criteria is evaluated from 1 to 5, the markexpressing the estimation of fulfilling the performance criteria inrealizing the activity.

c. In order to obtain the mark for the assessment of the activity, thearithmetic mean shall be taken of the marks given for fulfilling eachcomponent.

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d. In order to obtain the mark for the assessment of the performancecriteria, the arithmetic mean shall be taken of the marks for fulfillingeach criteria.

e. In order to obtain the final mark, the arithmetic mean shall be takenof the marks awarded under (c) and (d).

(2) The provisions of article 9 shall be applied accordingly.

Article 16

The high ranking civil servant dissatisfied with the mark obtained at the individualperformance evaluation may appeal to the court of administrative litigation uponthe law.