Quotas ? a disaster from the start (CDR IV)
When will this administration recognize that setting
quotas on a one-size-fits-all basis is a sure-fire recipe for disaster?
The setting of quotas has, more than any other single
factor, been responsible for more staff ?switching off? than any other aspect
of the shameful, ill-conceived and poorly implemented reform brought in by Neil
Kinnock.
The imposition of predetermined quotas for points and
promotions means that no staff report is worth the paper it is written on, and
has rendered the whole exercise a bad joke in the experience of many, if not
most, staff.
CDR is a pointless exercise, and is seen as such by
staff and reporting officers alike, in that the points awarded are largely
meaningless. It has evolved into an exercise which serves little or no purpose,
and which is hugely wasteful of (scarce) time and other resources.
Why? Because no reporting officer
can give an honest mark to any reportee. Other constraints apply, and
take priority.
Services are each given a certain number of
points. This is fixed from on high.
Reporting officers are told before the exercise starts
that the average must be ?X? points. Thus giving an extra point to official A
necessitates removing a point from official B.
The inevitable logic of this system is that for an
official to improve his or her own chances of an extra point it is in his or
her best interest to make other colleagues look bad. Goodbye cooperation, hello
backstabbing. What a result!
The difference in practice between the official who
makes a conscientious effort to do his or her best, and the time-server who
does the minimum, is no more than one point.
In the promotion race, one point, or even two, here or
there is utterly insignificant, and everybody recognizes this. A ?performer?
might hope to be promoted in eight years, whilst a ?jobsworth? will go up in
nine.
Quicker or slower promotion is in practice determined
by the priority points awarded by the DG. Points gained on the annual report
are never enough to pass the threshold for promotion.
As nobody dares to disagree with the
hierarchy for fear giving offence and thus of losing the priority points, the
result is a sycophants? charter.
And so, how many did you get?. ?
(CDR V)
Yes, the burning question on everyone?s lips is not
?How will
So, how many points did you get? Not enough, I expect.
Perhaps you were like me and received half a point more than last year. I found
this half a point most disturbing and am still trying to digest it! I would
have preferred to have kept my old amount of points than to be awarded half a
point more! This half a point threw many questions at me. How come I wasn?t
good enough to be awarded a whole point. Who has my
other half point? Or, whose half point have I received? Will I then be awarded
another half point next year and the year after that.
(I somehow have the feeling that this doesn?t correspond to a ?carrière
rapide?.) What do I have to do to be awarded a whole point?
I must admit that I was ashamed of my reaction.
Ashamed that after over 20 years of ?officialdom?, I could still be upset by
something as absurd and irrelevant as the number of points awarded in my CDR!
So how did you feel when you saw your CDR points ?
were you joyful, tearful, furious or just plain indifferent? Contact us. We
would be interested to know your
reaction!
An Earthquake in EU Staff Law (CDR VI)
On Thursday,
16.06.2005 Court of First Instance awarded 950 EURO in damages to a
CDR-victim named Georgio Lebedef. It has been very rare that a claimant
received even a symbolic 1 EURO compensation in a case against one of
the Court?s sister institutions. This can be taken as an indication of how
exasperating the right honourable Mme V. Tiili, presiding the case, found the CDR.
The verdict in Case T-352/03 is now
loaded onto the Court?s web site, which can be found at
