Smash hit

“This is just another wheeze to get money outside the normal pay negotiations,” said Fielding. “A system that rewards 99.9% of workers would suggest we have the most excellent civil service in the world. The experience from customers would not point to 99.9% satisfaction.”

Fielding said if standards were “set so low as to give pay increases to everyone” then “top quality civil servants were not being properly rewarded for hard work and initiative”.

“You would also have to ask what those 18 people did to deserve the lowest grade.”

Tom Geraghty, assistant general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union, said PMDS had resulted in improved performances by government employees.

“PMDS requires management to sit down with employees on a systematic basis and assess how they are doing and if there are gaps in their knowledge or skill base that can be addressed,” said Geraghty.

“Obviously this can be very positive. We have received some complaints from people who are going for promotion who haven’t received a four or five and this is held against them. Everyone thinks they are a swan but there are bound to be a few ducks.”

The union leader said that he was not surprised by the tiny number of people graded at one, claiming that a vigorous minimum one year civil service probationary period weeded out underperformers. But he was surprised the number of people in the two grade was not greater.

“That could have been higher but, at the end of the day, you still have to motivate staff and telling them that they are useless isn’t a great way of doing that,” said Geraghty.

The Department of Finance estimates that the civil service pay bill will be ¤2.1 billion for 2008, up 6.7% from ¤1.9 billion in 2007.

The increase is a combination of a 2.5% award granted on September 1 under the national pay agreement, and civil servants’ annual increments.

Civil service numbers are at 38,572 this year from 37,156 last year. Due to decentralisation and transfers, not all civil servants completed their PMDS last year. The programme is to be introduced for 3,500 prison officers from 2009.

The state’s 35,000 local authority workers are committed to implementing the same scheme. A spokeswoman for the Health Service Executive, which employs 111,000 people, said it operated a performance review system that does not involve ratings.

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