700 words: Leadership

Performance management in education: milestone or millstone?

Gillian Forrester Liverpool John Moores University

Abstract The paper considers the extent to which the education sector has embraced performance management and performance-related pay. It contemplates the transfer and adaptation of performance management by the public sector as an audit mechanism for improving the performance, productivity, accountability and transparency of public services. The paper concludes by calling for a broader vision for reshaping education since it is argued that the activities of those working in schools, colleges and universities have been re-oriented by performance management techniques towards a competitive, performance culture.

Keywords performance management, performance-related pay, performativity, modernisation, managerialism

Introduction

A decade has passed since performance management was

introduced into schools in England as a formal process

(DfEE, 2000) while the implementation of a variety of

performance management systems in higher education

institutions dates back to 1992 (Broadbent, 2007). Perfor-

mance management is a process originating in the private

sector which has subsequently been adapted by the public

sector into an audit mechanism for improving the perfor-

mance, productivity, accountability and transparency of

public services. Accordingly successive governments since

the 1980s have drawn on what they perceive as business-

orientated strategies from the private sector, particularly

those related to aspects of financial and performance man-

agement, to remedy the perceived inadequacies of the pub-

lic sector. The introduction of performance management in

education has not been without controversy, particularly

since it can be perceived as a form of managerial control

over professional work.

The concept of ‘performance’

What is actually meant by ‘performance’ is perhaps

debatable and probably regarded differently in different

contexts and among different occupational groups. A dic-

tionary definition offers the following: ‘the act or process

of performing or carrying out; the execution or fulfilment

of a duty; a person’s achievement under test conditions’

(Allen, 1991: 885). In one sense this refers to something

accomplished: the outcomes or the outputs. However, and

as Armstrong (2000: 3) argues, ‘performance is about

doing the work as well as being about the results achieved’.

Considered as a more holistic concept then, performance

also encompasses behaviour and activity and the way indi-

viduals, teams and organisations carry out their work.

Performance, arguably, is a demonstrative act which

embraces results as well as the effective use of appropriate

skills, knowledge, competences and behaviours to achieve

them.

Origins of performance management

Performance management developed in the public services

in the late 1980s in response to the realisation that a more

continuous and integrated approach was needed to manage

and reward performance (Armstrong & Baron, 1998). In

addition, and in line with the Total Quality Management

(TQM) agenda, the idea that an organisation’s performance

was the responsibility of everyone, not just management,

became a more prominent way of thinking. Consequently

everyone in an organisation was accountable for its results

and performance management systems have become quite

commonplace in many organisations as part of the manage-

ment of human resources. Armstrong & Murlis (1991: 195)

define performance management succinctly as consisting

of ‘a systematic approach to the management of people,

using performance, goals, measurement, feedback and rec-

ognition as a means of motivating them to realise their

maximum potential’. Murlis (1992: 65) later refined her

description of performance management as ‘the process

that links people and jobs to the strategy and objectives

of the organization’, stating that ‘Good performance man-

agement is about operating a process which increases the

likelihood of achieving performance improvements.’ In

other words, performance management can be regarded

as a process that translates the mission, aims and values

of an organisation into individual objectives.

Corresponding author:

E-mail: [email protected]

Management in Education 25(1) 5–9 ª 2011 British Educational Leadership, Management & Administration Society (BELMAS) Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0892020610383902 mie.sagepub.com

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Performance management, usually in the form of a

continuous cycle, encompasses the following elements.

Firstly, at the planning stage, the objectives that an

individual is to achieve are agreed and set. Performance

management is therefore purported to be more forward-

looking than its forerunner, performance appraisal, which

had the tendency to be backward looking (Armstrong,

2006). The monitoring of an individual’s performance

forms part of the second stage. In the final stage of the cycle

an individual’s performance is evaluated in a performance

review. The meeting of objectives over the given period is

evaluated and new objectives set (see, for example,

Armstrong, 2000: 21). In schools in Britain head teachers

are required to ensure that teachers are appraised accord-

ingly and annually (DfEE, 2000). Arrangements for teach-

ers in England for example, are covered by the Education

(School Teacher Performance Management) (England)

Regulations 2006 which came into force in September

2007. Similar performance management mechanisms can

be found elsewhere including the USA, Hong Kong and

New Zealand (Bell & Stevenson, 2006).

The transfer and adaptation of management concepts

from the private sector to the public sector occurred in the

1980s. This process, however, was not strictly a preserve of

Thatcher’s Conservative government as similar initiatives

had occurred in the 1950s and 1960s (see Smith, 1972).

Cutler & Waine (1994) suggest that:

. . . what was different about the 1980s was the systematic

introduction of managerialism, a process which drove a

plethora of institutional changes . . . In a general sense,

public sector managerialism is characterised by the belief

that the objectives of social services such as health, educa-

tion, personal social services or social security can be pro-

moted at a lower cost when the appropriate management

concepts are applied. (Cutler & Waine, 1994: x)

Managerialism can essentially be understood as a set of

beliefs and practices which have been adopted and utilised

in various ways in order to reshape public sector

organisations and agencies, practices, culture and ideology

in order to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness and orga-

nisational performance (Zifcak, 1994). Whether conceptua-

lised as ‘new managerialism’ (Clarke & Newman, 1997;

Exworthy & Halford, 1999) or New Public Management

(Newman, 2000), this mode of regulation denoted central

control over strategy and local devolution of the tactics to

achieve them.

Performance-related pay

Essentially performance-related pay (PRP) links an

individual’s pay to their performance, which is usually

measured against predetermined objectives or targets. The

Incomes Data Services defined PRP in the 1980s as ‘Sys-

tems providing for periodic increases in pay which are

incorporated into basic salary or wages and which result

from assessments of individual performance and personal

value to the organization’, a definition which they still hold

as good (IDS, 2000/1). The assessment of an individual’s

performance invariably takes the form of an appraisal by

their manager(s) or through a performance review. As part

of a general trend PRP schemes were increasingly being

used by private-sector organisations and became an

established reward system for managerial pay in the United

States and Britain during the 1980s and 1990s.

Performance-related pay, sometimes referred to as ‘merit

pay’, was considered a ‘strategic tool’ to foster improved

performance and was extended to other employee levels

and across a wide range of occupations. The expansion of

PRP was illustrative of attempts by private and later public

sectors to adapt to what they saw as the more demanding

and competitive environment of contemporary organisa-

tions. Within this environment employees’ pay is used as

a strategic managerial tool to promote improved individual

performance.

The system of PRP for teachers contemplated at some

length in the 1980s and 1990s during the Thatcher–Major

Conservative governments was based purely on measures

of pupil performance and met with some opposition from

teachers (NATFHE, 1992; NUT, 1991). The School Teach-

ers’ Review Body (STRB), an independent though

government-appointed committee responsible for recom-

mending teachers’ pay and conditions, was from 1993 suc-

cessively asked by the Secretary of State for Education to

consider ways in which teachers’ pay might be ‘more

closely related to their performance’ (STRB, 1992: para.

61). While the STRB supported the principle of PRP for

teachers it favoured a school-based approach rather than

the individual teacher-based approach favoured by govern-

ment. Only limited progress towards its introduction was

made largely due to the difficulties of finding acceptable

performance measures (Cutler & Waine, 1999) and the

Conservatives’ reluctance to risk hostility with the profes-

sional teacher associations (Tomlinson, 2000). Neverthe-

less, the Conservatives put the foundations for a system

of PRP for teachers in place and this unfinished project was

taken up by the New Labour Government.

Performance management in education

Performance management for schools was initially

presented as both a necessity and a rational course of action

by the then Secretary of State for Education – ‘the kind of

system which is the norm across the public and private sec-

tors’ (Blunkett, 1999) and which was ‘aligned with current

thinking’ (Tomlinson, 2000: 297) about employee account-

ability and remuneration in business. Performance-related

pay in the form of threshold assessment, originally intro-

duced as part of the former New Labour government’s

attempts to modernise the teaching profession, was, rather

than being ‘new’ or ‘modern’, ironically harking back to

the nineteenth-century system of ‘payment by results’

(Forrester, 2001). Nevertheless, policy-makers have tended

to view performance management (and its sometimes asso-

ciated systems of PRP) as a milestone: a significant step

towards the modernisation of the public services. Indeed

policy-makers have seemingly regarded PRP and

6 Management in Education 25(1)

performance management as the solution to a number of

persisting problems. In education a system linking pay to

performance for head teachers and deputies evolved from

the revision of their pay structure in 1991 and, more

specifically, from the 1995/96 and 1996/97 pay reviews

(Marsden & French, 1998) as a mechanism for measuring,

monitoring and rewarding performance. The extension of

PRP to classroom teachers in 2000 was perceived by

policy-makers as a remedy to alleviate the crisis of teacher

recruitment and retention by offering greater financial

rewards to teachers. It was anticipated that more graduates

would be attracted to the new career structure and enter

teaching as a consequence. Policy-makers regard PRP as

a motivating mechanism, with the potential to ‘incentivise’

teachers to perform to higher standards in exchange for

greater financial gain. The process of performance

management would facilitate the development of a

performance-driven culture in education, and advance the

raising of standards in schools.

However, many working within education regard such

developments more in terms of a millstone: a heavy burden,

which increases bureaucracy, intensifies surveillance and

monitoring of their work and potentially erodes their work-

ing relationships. Indeed, performance management can be

regarded as primarily a form of control, not for incentivis-

ing individuals (Forrester, 2001). By managing the perfor-

mance of employees ‘more strategically’, translating

organisational objectives into individual goals and regu-

larly reviewing those goals, performance management pro-

vides greater control over employees’ activities.

Employees are cordially required to cooperate in these pro-

cesses, and the outcome of their performance review deter-

mines a pay award. Performance management relies on the

processes of evaluation and self-improvement as disciplin-

ary mechanisms of control. This allows management con-

siderable control over what is defined as appropriate

employee performance and behaviour (Kessler & Purcell,

1992). Performance management is, therefore, not just

about monitoring performance, for it has the capacity to

shape and reshape schools, colleges and universities.

It has not been the case of those working in the educa-

tion sector passively and unquestioningly adopting these

government-imposed reforms for, in some instances, there

has been opposition and resistance. However, despite initial

hostilities towards the introduction of performance man-

agement in education, particularly around the controversial

nature of measuring ‘what happens’ in education and in

some cases linking pay to performance, performance man-

agement (and the performative language it embraces)

appears to have become an embedded process across the

sector. It brings with it a marked change in the rhetoric

around ‘accountability’ and ‘performativity’ and the

wholesale adoption of business language into education.

Terms such as standards, targets, benchmarks, performance

indictors, audits, delivery, inputs, outputs, etc. have

become absorbed and embedded in such a way that it is

difficult to think about and talk about education without

utilising this form of language, a development aptly coined

‘edu-babble’ (Chitty, 2009). Indeed education is subsumed

by ‘policy technologies’ (Ball, 2008) and by the propensity

for performance management, the discourse of which pur-

ports to ‘manage’ performance.

With the ascendancy of managerialism educational

institutions have come to encompass surveillance, monitor-

ing, evaluation through assessment and measurement, and

judgement. A discourse of individual accountability

predominates in this type of environment and promotes the

processes of self-monitoring, self-management and self-

regulation. Performance or performativity becomes para-

mount in terms of pupils’ and students’ results (test scores,

examination attainment and degree classification) and the

work of those who are employed in the sector is increas-

ingly reconstituted in terms of outcomes. Lyotard argues

that ‘since performitivity increases the ability to produce

proof, it also increases the ability to be right’ (Lyotard,

1984: 46). Central control of education is maintained ‘at

a distance’; it is ‘steered’ through the central setting of the

overall educational performance framework or standards to

be attained (Ball, 1994). Performativity acts as a disciplin-

ary mechanism in the devolved (and alternative) govern-

ance of education.

Steering at a distance is an alternative to coercive/

prescriptive control. Constraints are replaced by incentives.

Prescription is replaced by ‘ex post’ accountability based

upon quality or outcome assessments. Coercion is

replaced by self-steering – the appearance of autonomy.

(Ball, 1994: 54)

Providers and consumers of education are rewarded or

punished according to their performance. Through the

drive for ‘efficiency gains’ (alternatively perceived as

‘cuts’) and increased accountability, the nature of teaching

and learning across the sector has arguably been trans-

formed more visibly into ‘performing’ or being seen to per-

form. Pay and career trajectories are essentially tied to the

meeting of centrally devised standards and therefore, argu-

ably, a device to augment managerial control. Also,

because PRP focuses the issue of reward of the individual,

this potentially induces division among staff and impairs

teachers’ capacity to organise collectively as teams.

Evaluating performance management

Some key research studies investigating performance man-

agement have been undertaken in schools (e.g. Wragg

et al., 2003; Mahony et al., 2004), in further education

(e.g. Gleeson et al., 2009) and in higher education (e.g.

Deem et al., 2007; Broadbent & Laughlin, 2006; Broad

& Goddard, 2010). The academic literature mushroomed

from the late 1990s until about the mid-2000s, fuelled by

an increasing interest in performance management and the

performance measurement process as well as by a demand

for advice and information. Notably, there was an explo-

sion of academic books and journal articles (and practi-

tioner literature) during this time which encompass: the

Forrester 7

prescriptive ‘how to do’ performance management type

texts (e.g. Tranter & Percival, 2006); issues around appro-

priate performance indicators and what can be measured

(e.g. Kane & Staiger, 2002); experiential studies which

documented how employees may, for example, subvert the

process or suffer anxiety as result of the process (e.g.

Wilson et al., 2004; Haynes et al., 2003); and philosophical

and theoretical texts around conceptual issues of discourse

and control (e.g. Ball, 2001; Jermier et al.,1994). More

recently, however, the foci of scholarly activity seem to

have shifted towards leaders, leading and leadership.

A phenomenal amount of money running into millions

of pounds has been spent on setting up and maintaining

performance management in education. This has involved,

for example, the training of those charged with conducting

performance management, lucrative contracts to consultan-

cies to develop models and training packages, the employ-

ment of external assessors, advisers and consultants and

generally managing and overseeing the operation of the

system. However, little is known of actual costs let alone

the extent to which performance management has contrib-

uted to ‘improvement’, ‘efficiency’ and ‘excellence’.

While not wanting to totally dismiss achievements in edu-

cation over the past decade (and indeed there is much to

celebrate and to be optimistic about!) a much broader understanding of what education is and what education is

for is now needed. A more fundamental reshaping of the

vision for education is desperately required. At the time

of writing the current UK Coalition government’s vision

for education is somewhat unclear. Early indications from

the Secretary of State for Education signal to head teachers

that a ‘key principle’ is ‘trusting professionals’ with ‘more

power and control . . . to get on with the job’ (Gove, 2010). However, for the moment the performance of educational

institutions will remain under scrutiny and potentially this

may intensify as funding and accountability becomes even

tighter in the current economic climate.

Conclusion

To what extent performance management may be regarded

as a milestone or a millstone largely depends on where peo-

ple are positioned within or outside the education sector.

What is of more concern, however, is that the origins of

performance management, seen as emanating from the

business sector, no longer seem to be acknowledged. Yet

the activities of those working in schools, colleges and uni-

versities have been reoriented by performance management

techniques towards a competitive culture, which has

brought with it a ‘tick-box mentality’, a decline in trust,

changing attitudes and values in education, and shifting

foci and priorities.

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Biography

Gillian Forrester is a Principal Lecturer and Deputy Center

Leader for Education and Early Childhood Studies in the

Faculty of Education, Community and Leisure at Liverpool

John Moores University.

Forrester 9