Do not use box mark quotas for ratings!

The following has been supplied by PCS DWP Group:

Ratings must not be changed or forced simply to fit the distribution guide

Your end-of-year rating must be fair
Your performance must be fairly assessed and rated. Every employee is entitled to a fair assessment of their performance and the award of a performance rating which they have achieved. People Performance Procedure 9.7 requires that: End-of-year ratings will always be based on a balanced consideration of the employee’s personal performance over the entire period and decisions must be transparent, fair and reasonable. There must be no surprises Your final end-of-year rating should not come as a surprise to you for three major reasons:

1. Known performance expectations
At the start of the performance year Managers must explain what the performance expectations are in the employee’s own work context so that there is a shared understanding of performance expectations for the employee’s peer group. (Procedure 5.3 & How to: Set Performance Expectations Consistently at the start of the Year guide 10)

2. Regular performance discussions 
Regular discussions and consistency checking during the performance year should ensure consistency at the end of the year – i.e. that the employee’s performance has not been over or under-estimated in relation to other employees in their peer group (Procedure 7 & How to hold Regular Performance Discussions guide)

3. Ratings will not be changed or forced simply to fit the distribution (Procedure 9.3).
Your performance must be fairly evaluated against:

• the ‘What’ (delivery of objectives) and
• the ‘How’ (demonstration of behaviours, competencies and values), 
• and known performance expectations, which are the standards set at the start of the year with equal weighting between ‘What’ and ‘How’.

DWP People Performance has a procedural requirement that ratings must be consistent with known performance expectations (Procedure 12.1).

There is no procedural requirement that managers must meet the distribution ranges at the end of the year. Managers must not co-operate with any local misuse of the guided distribution as ‘box mark quotas’. They must comply with DWP policy not to do so.

Dispute unfair ratings
Contact your local PCS representative for advice, support and representation should you be awarded an unfair performance rating.