SEMINAR ON CIVIL SERVICE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

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SEMINAR ON CIVIL SERVICE PERFORMANCE
APPRAISAL Vilnius, 23-24 May 2006
Civil servants performance appraisal in Spain
the experience at the General Directorate for
Cadastre.
Ignacio Durán. Deputy Director General. General
Directorate for Cadastre. Ministry of Economy
and Finance. Spain. adjunto.director_at_catastro.meh.
es
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1.-General Criteria. 1.1.-Legal regulations for
the determination of salaries in the Civil
Service. 1.2.- Productivity Bonus. 2.- Functions
of the General Directorate of Cadastre. 2.1.-
Structure and functions. 2.2.- Quality
Plan. 2.3.- Objectives Plan. 2.3.1.- Plan
Design. 2.3.2.- Assignment of economic
resources. 2.3.3.- Plan Monitoring. 2.3.4.-
Evaluationof Fulfilment of the Plan. 3.- Criteria
for assignment of the Productivity Bonus. 3.1.-
Calendar crtieria for distribution of the
Productivity Bonus. 3.2.- Criteria for
distribution of the Productivity Bonus for
fulfilment of the Quality Plan and Objectives
Plan. 3.2.1.- Evaluationof the Quality
Plan. 3.2.2.- Evaluation of the Objectives
Plan. 3.2.3.- Extraordinary Circumstances. 4.-
Critique of the Model.
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General Criteria.

• Legal regulations for the determination of
  salaries in the Civil Service.

The Law distinguishes between two types of
remuneration -Basic salary Paid to all civil
servants, regardless of the characteristics of
their job position or other concepts such as
performance results. -Allowances These differ
for each job position and even for each civil
servant, and recognise special circumstances such
as the achievement of objectives.
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• There are three types of basic salary
• a) Wages
• b) Triennial payments
• c) Extra payments

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Wages.

• An amount assigned annually to each Civil Service
  Corps. Wage is defined by the academic
  qualification required to form part of a specific
  Corps of the civil service. With this criterion,
  the Spanish General Budget Law for 2006
  establishes five different wage groups

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Triennial payment

• Consisting of an identical amount for the members
  of each group, payable for every three years of
  service. The Spanish General Budget Law for 2006
  establishes five different amounts, one for each
  of the above-mentioned groups

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Extra payments

• Twice per year, each for a minimum amount of one
  months salary plus triennial amounts, payable in
  June and December

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There are five types of complementary allowances

• a) The job allowance.
• b) The specific allowance.
• c) The extraordinary service bonus.
• d) The service allowance.
• e) Productivity bonus.

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The job allowance

• - Is a specific payment for each existing job
  position. It is therefore linked to a concrete
  position with specific functions.
• - The Law establishes 30 grades in accordance
  with this criterion. Each of these grades is
  assigned a different economic amount. The
  following table shows how these amounts, divided
  into monthly payments, are assigned

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The job allowance.

• Not all civil servants can occupy any position.
  Some positions are reserved for specific groups,
  and others can be occupied by civil servants
  pertaining to two different groups. The following
  table illustrates how grades are distributed

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The specific allowance.

• To remunerate specific conditions of certain
  positions in recognition of the special
  characteristics of the job. These
  characteristics are
• Technical difficulty, requiring special knowledge
  or qualifications to perform the work associated
  with the position.
• Dedication, when working hours can be prolonged
  to attend to urgent matters.
• Responsibility, when the position involves people
  management or decision making.
• Incompatibility, when the individual is expressly
  prohibited from any additional money-making
  activity.
• Danger, when the work could involve risk to the
  individuals life.
• Laboriosity, when the work to be performed
  requires contact with materials, temperatures,
  environments or other conditions that demand
  extraordinary effort.

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The extraordinary service bonus Payable for
certain work that, due to exceptional
circumstances, must be performed outside normal
working hours. This bonus is not a fixed amount,
and is not paid regularly.
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Service Allowance. Paid to employees to cover
extra expenses arising from travel or for
residence in a specific place in order to perform
their work.
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Productivity Bonus.

• The Law establishes that the purpose of this
  complementary payment is to recognize high
  performance, extraordinary activity and the
  interest or initiative shown by the employee in
  the performance of his/her work.
• High performance exists when the individual
  produces, within normal working hours, more than
  other civil servants performing the same
  activity.
• Extraordinary activity exists when the
  individual performs functions different from
  his/her regular functions within normal working
  hours.
• Special interest or initiative occurs when the
  individual goes beyond performance of the work
  assigned to propose improvements, participate in
  innovation initiatives, or demonstrate special
  interest in fulfilling the needs of citizens.

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The control criteria to be followed

• 1. In accordance with the regulations of the
  Budget Law, the person responsible for managing
  each programme will determine the amount payable
  to each employee.
• 2. The amount of the productivity bonus paid to
  each individual will be published for access by
  all civil servants and union representatives.
• 3. The amount paid can vary for each civil
  servant.
• 4. Payment of the productivity bonus does not
  generate rights on the part of the employee.

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An example my salary for March 2006
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Assignment of the Productivity Bonus in the
General Directorate of Cadastre.
Structure and Functions of the General
Directorate of Cadastre.
1.-Cadastral data are used particularly for tax
administration. Specifically, cadastral
information is used for seven different forms of
taxation. The Cadastre also serves a wide
variety of other uses for which land information
is necessary.
2.- 3000 people. 300 work in our Madrid
headquarters. 52 regional and territorial
offices, where cadastral data are updated and
maintained daily (production centres), whose
activity and performance must be controlled
efficiently.
3.- 48 million hectares cadastred in digital
format, with detailed information on 19,428,000
cadastral titleholders (owners, in the majority)
and 30,546,000 urban estates. The rural cadastre
contains information on 41,623,000 rural parcels
with 7,248,000 cadastral titleholders.
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For each estate and parcel, the Cadastre contains
detailed information on the following elements
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Structure and Functions of the General
Directorate of Cadastre.
-It is essential to ensure that our data is
permanently up-to-date. The Law establishes that
any modification in real estate that affects its
physical, legal or economic characteristics must
be declared to the Cadastre. -This obligation is
not only applicable to citizens. Other entities
with the obligation to declare to the Cadastre
are -Public notaries and property
registrars. -Local authorities -Authorities
responsible for expropriation . -Etc.
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Structure and Functions of the General
Directorate of Cadastre.
2005 showing changes registered in the cadastral
database -2,133,000 changes in ownership of
urban properties. -353,000 changes in ownership
of rural properties. -1,291,000 new urban
properties incorporated into the
Cadastre. -185,000 claims presented and resolved.
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Structure and Functions of the General
Directorate of Cadastre.

• -The General Directorate of Cadastre is also
  responsible for maintaining cadastral values
  updated.
• -Each property has its own cadastral value.
• -The Law establishes that these values must be
  updated periodically, using the market value as
  reference.
• -This requires cadastral offices to annually
  update the cadastral values of a large number of
  towns and properties.

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Structure and Functions of the General
Directorate of Cadastre.

• Diffusion of cadastral information
• -Regional and territorial offices attend to
  thousands of citizens every day, who request
  maps, aerial photographs and other cadastral
  information. In 2005 we received over 1,888,000
  visits of this type.
• -1,500,000 digital cadastral certificates, with
  full legal validity, were delivered through the
  e-Cadastre.

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Structure and Functions of the General
Directorate of Cadastre.

• -All of these activities are carried out using an
  extremely powerful case management digital
  information system.
• -Every declaration, claim or document presented
  by citizens or public entities is computerised
  and all processing is performed electronically.
  This type of technology is absolutely essential
  to efficiently evaluate performance.
• -An efficient system of management by objectives
  and performance appraisal is only possible with
  information on the volume of work carried out at
  any given time in a specific office.

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Quality Plan.
-Wide variety of customers citizens, members of
the Public Administration, Private enterprise and
professionals also need cadastral data. -The
success of the Cadastre in terms of customer
satisfaction will only be achieved when we are
able to match our strategic capacity (doing the
right work) to our operational capacity (doing
our work right).
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Quality Plan.

• The Quality Plan is based on the following
  elements
• 1.-Know our customers well. This requires
  continuous surveys to measure customer
  satisfaction and expectations.
• 2.-Fully motivate our employees. So that each
  employee feels part of the organisation and is
  committed to the objectives and goals we have set
  ourselves.
• 3.-Define a strategic plan focused on satisfying
  the needs of our clients. Driving technical and
  procedural reform and change to adequately
  respond to these needs.
• 4.-Assess these quality processes. Requiring an
  appropriate procedure to enable us to define
  quality improvement goals and to evaluate how
  these goals are being achieved.

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Quality Plan.

• The Quality Plan is based on the excellence model
  proposed by the European Foundation for Quality
  Management (EFQM).

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Quality Plan.

• We have initiated numerous other actions in this
  area. The following are the main examples
• -A Service Charter has been drawn up and
  approved. This expressly includes quality
  commitments.
• -A large amount of training is being provided for
  our employees, to improve their capabilities and
  customer relationship skills.
• -An internal and external communications plan has
  been approved to improve the exchange of
  information both inside and outside the
  organization.
• -Surveys are conducted regularly to learn what
  citizens think of us.
• -Quality Committees have been created, both in
  headquarters and in many of our regional and
  territorial offices.

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Objectives Plan.
The following elements are taken into account
during the design phase each year
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Objectives Plan.

• -The Plan consists of 30 different objectives.
• -Significant differences exist among the 52
  Cadastral offices.
• -This situation defines an initial inequality
  between offices, which makes comparison
  difficult. To solve this problem, workload is
  defined in terms of points per employee

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Objectives Plan.

• -The General Directorate of Cadastre receives an
  important amount of money every year that allows
  it to contract private companies to carry out
  support tasks for the regional and territorial
  offices.
• The General Directorate of Cadastre additionally
  has its own public enterprise that also performs
  a part of this work.
• -The annual workload defined by the Objetives
  Plan for each of the offices in turn defines the
  criteria for distribution of these additional
  resources.

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Objectives Plan.

• -Plan Monitoring.
• The Objectives Plan is monitored monthly. In the
  first five days of each month, the 52 regional
  and territorial offices electronically report a
  large volume of detailed information on the work
  performed during the previous month.
• These results are compared against forecast
  results for the month per the Objectives Plan for
  each office, showing progress against plan for
  each objective.
• This information is placed on the organizations
  Intranet, so that employees can view the results
  achieved by all offices and not just their own.
  This introduces an element of competition.

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Objectives Plan.

• Evaluation of Fulfilment of the Plan.
• -Comparison between actual results and the
  monthly objectives established in the Plan
  provides data on the level of fulfilment.
• -When results fall short of objective, the
  Regional or Territorial Manager must inform the
  General Directorate of the following
• -Reasons for the shortfall.
• -Measures taken to correct the situation.
• -Timeframe to return to a situation within
  objective.
• -The person responsible can be dismissed and
  replaced by another Manager if the situation is
  not corrected within a reasonable period of time.
  
• -In January of each year the total activity of
  each office during the previous year is assessed
  and conclusions are reached.

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Criteria for assignment of the Productivity
Bonus.

• The bonus is applied in accordance with two
  general criteria
• The degree of commitment of each office and each
  civil servant to the initiatives and projects
  established in
• - the Quality Plan.
• - the Objectives Plan.

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Criteria for assignment of the Productivity Bonus.

• Calendar criteria for distribution of the
  Productivity Bonus.
• Spanish regulations stipulate that the
  productivity bonus be distributed in two ways
• -A percentage of the amount is paid on
• account in the monthly salary payment.
• -A larger percentage is generally paid quarterly,
  to liquidate the total amount payable for that
  quarter.

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Criteria for assignment of the Productivity Bonus.

• Evaluation of the Quality Plan.
• In December, the following circumstances are
• analysed
• -Initiatives developed by the regional or
  territorial office to improve service quality.
  Throughout the year, offices adopt specific
  measures to improve quality.
• -Personal initiatives leading to improved
  service quality. In December, the initiatives
  developed by specific individuals who have
  contributed to implement the General
  Directorates Quality Policy are reviewed.

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Criteria for assignment of the Productivity Bonus.

• Evaluation of the Objectives Plan.
• Offices are ranked based on the results obtained
  for each of the goals comprising the Plan.
  Together with the results of the plan, we also
  expressly analyse if the office has processed
  more work than in the previous year and if the
  number of documents pending processing has been
  reduced. The following table is an example of
  how regional offices were ranked in 2005.

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Criteria for assignment of the Productivity Bonus.

• Evaluation of the Objectives Plan.
• Ranking of offices.

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Criteria for assignment of the Productivity Bonus.

• Procedure used to define the amounts to be
  assigned,
• -Each office has an initial Productivity Bonus
  fund. This Productivity fund is calculated
  taking into account the number of civil servants
  working in the office and the job grade of each.
• -To evaluate fulfilment of objectives, the
  offices are classified into five groups
• Offices which exceed objectives by more than 15
  vs. Plan.
• Offices which exceed objectives by more than 5
  vs. Plan.
• Offices meeting objectives, with a maximum
  variance of /- 5.
• Offices which have failed to meet objectives by
  over 5 vs. Plan.
• Offices which have failed to meet objectives by
  over 15 vs. Plan.
• -The initial fund mentioned before will be
  increased or reduced proportionately based on the
  group in which each office is classified.

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Criteria for assignment of the Productivity Bonus.

• Amount corresponding to each employee
• -Level of participation in the achievement of
  objectives. The computerised casework control
  system provides information on the amount of work
  performed by each individual.
• -Level of commitment to other goals that are more
  difficult to measure. Certain positions, such as
  Team Leader, technologies personnel, or customer
  service representatives, perform work that is
  difficult to appraise objectively. In these
  cases, it is essential that the manager
  subjectively evaluate the work carried out by the
  individual and apply criteria to distribute the
  productivity bonus.

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Criteria for assignment of the Productivity Bonus.

• Extraordinary Circumstances.
• In certain extraordinary circumstances, it is not
  possible to apply the above criteria. In these
  cases, subjective criteria must be used to
  distribute the Productivity Bonus.

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Critique of the Model.

• 1º.-Calendar problems.
• 2º.-Problems arising from the amount of the
  Productivity Bonus fund.
• 3º.-Problems with amounts paid on account.
• 4º.-Problems with the percentage of the
  Productivity Bonus in terms of total salary.
• 5º.- Problems with the reactions generated by
  distribution.

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• Thank you!