The Performance Evaluation System in Pakistan’s Civil Service

Abstract

While achieving economic growth anddevelopment are dependent on the performance of the bureaucracy, there is a growing inability in Pakistan to objectivelyevaluate this performance. In this article, we examine performance evaluations systems that can be applied to developingcountry bureaucracies and find that the best system in the Pakistani context is the SMART performance evaluation system. We then analyze the present Pakistani system and compare it to an example of a SMART system and find that the disconnect between the actual performance of the civil service and the measurement of this performance by the performance evaluation report (PER) in Pakistan, has discouraged optimal performance. The article also looks at the perceptions of senior civil servants themselves on what they perceive as the shortcomings of the performance evaluation management system in Pakistan as well as their opinions on a potential SMART performance evaluations system. The article recommends an immediate re-evaluation of the present performance management where the re-evaluation initiatives must be tempered with the realization that the present system has been established not to optimize bureaucratic performance but rather to sustain the present system of patronage and power.