All Government ministries, state corporations, and tertiary institutions are expected to undergo an Annual Performance Evaluation for the 2023/24 Financial Year.
The exercise, which will be undertaken by the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Performance and Delivery Management will commence on Monday, December 9, 2024, and is expected to take two months.
Typically, the government uses performance contracting as the key performance management tool for implementing its programmes and projects.
Among the key objectives of performance contracting include improving efficiency and effectiveness in the management of public service and improving service delivery to the public among others.
In a bid to improve service delivery, the government engages in performance contracting to ensure that top-level managers are accountable for results, and in turn, hold those below them accountable.
The performance evaluation is based on the commitments agreed upon at the beginning of the Financial Year which are contained in the Performance Contracts of respective MDAs (Ministries, Departments, and Agencies).
Performance indicators are contained in the Performance Contracts (PC) and are informed by national development goals, as espoused mainly in the Kenya Vision 2030 and the Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
These contracts are cascaded to all departments, agencies, sections, units, and eventually to all cadres of employees in order to entrench a performance-oriented culture in the public service.
Government MDAs are required to undergo performance evaluation at the end of each financial year to whether targets set in the performance contracts have been achieved. MDAs kick-start the process through a mandatory self-performance evaluation. Once this is completed, the process will move to an external evaluation.
The Public Service Performance Management Unit (PSPMU) in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Performance and Delivery Management will then be tasked with conducting the external evaluation, which entails physical verification of the quarterly and annual achievements for the 2023/24 Financial Year.
The latest announcement comes just a week after civil servants were informed of a possible salary delay for the month of November.
In a memo directed to all department heads, the Ministry of Public Service stated that the delay was caused by the migration of ministries, departments, and agencies from the old manual Integrated Personal Payroll Database (IPPD) to the Human Resource Information System (IPPD) as required by the state Department for Public Service.
