Context:

• According to a report (of The Indian Express), the Cabinet Secretariat has introduced performance scorecards for Union Secretaries.
• This marks a significant shift in the evaluation framework of senior civil servants at the Centre, forming an important theme of the Civil Services reforms.

Performance Scorecards for Union Secretaries:

• What the scorecard measures?
  • The performance scorecards assess secretaries on around a dozen quantifiable parameters, including -
    • Output delivery
    • Negative marking for lapses
    • A limited discretionary component retained by the Cabinet Secretary
  • Quantifiable administrative output: Timely implementation of responsibilities (file disposal rates, reduction of pendency), budgetary discipline (expenditure control), measurable project delivery, etc.
  • Corporate-style KPIs: The framework resembles Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) used in the corporate sector, privileging speed, efficiency, target-based delivery, and compliance.
• What the scorecard omits?
  • Around 100 secretaries serve in the Government of India (about 80 from the IAS; others from IFS, central services, engineering, scientific and economic services).
  • Their role goes far beyond file clearance. Therefore, the more striking issue is what it does not measure.
  • Missing dimensions:
    • Policy formulation and strategic advice.
    • Ensuring proposals are administratively workable, fiscally sustainable, and politically viable.
    • Anticipating unintended consequences.
    • Institutional continuity and memory.
    • Critical evaluation and dissent.
  • These dimensions are the hallmarks of a permanent civil service in a parliamentary system, yet they remain outside the measurable framework.
• A reform or reductionism: While this signals a push toward efficiency and measurable accountability, the reform raises deeper constitutional and institutional concerns about the role of the permanent civil service in a parliamentary democracy.

Constitutional and Institutional Perspective:

• Under Article 312 of the Indian Constitution, Parliament created the All-India Services (IAS, IPS, IFoS) not as delivery agents, but as -
  • Instruments of national integration
  • Impartial and politically neutral administrators
  • Custodians of federal balance
  • Institutional memory of governance
• The shift toward output-based scoring risks redefining them as mere implementation managers rather than policy stewards.

Key Concerns and Challenges:

• Erosion of institutional memory:
  • Treating every initiative as a standalone project undermines long-term policy continuity, learning from administrative experience, and adaptive governance.
  • In parliamentary systems, durable policies survive because bureaucracies refine them over time.
• Marginalisation of policy advice:
  • If policy design increasingly shifts to external advisory bodies, political units, and think tanks, then secretaries may -
    • Retreat from offering critical counsel
    • Focus only on meeting deadlines
    • Avoid questioning flawed proposals
  • This weakens the foundational principle of an independent civil service.
• Speed over scrutiny:
  • A system that rewards compliance over counsel, speed over scrutiny, may discourage honest dissent, preventive bureaucratic intervention, and early identification of flawed schemes.
  • In a healthy administrative system, bureaucrats modify, defer, quietly abandon impractical proposals before public embarrassment or policy failure occurs.
• Devaluation of the higher civil service:
  • Reducing secretaries to KPI managers risks undermining the UPSC-based meritocratic recruitment system, dismissing years of training in policy judgement, and weakening the prestige and autonomy of the higher bureaucracy.
  • Ultimately, this could damage the edifice of governance itself.
• Accountability vs over-simplification:
  • Accountability is essential. However, institutional accountability mechanisms already exist.
  • For example, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and Estimates Committee.
  • Performance evaluation should complement—not replace—the deeper constitutional framework of oversight.

Broader Governance Implications:

• This issue touches multiple themes of civil services reforms, like
  • Politico-administrative relations
  • Neutrality and permanence of bureaucracy
  • Corporate management techniques in public administration
  • Federal structure and national integration
  • Role of dissent in governance
• It also links to debates around mission-mode governance, lateral entry, centralisation of policymaking, and technocratic vs constitutional models of administration.

Way Forward - A Balanced Reform Approach is Needed:

• Broaden evaluation parameters: Include quality of policy advice, long-term impact assessment, innovation in governance, inter-ministerial coordination, and crisis anticipation and mitigation.
• Protect space for dissent: Institutionalise recorded policy notes, structured internal review mechanisms, and encouragement of reasoned disagreement.
• Blend quantitative and qualitative assessment: Evaluation should combine measurable output indicators, peer review, ministerial feedback, and independent expert assessment
• Reaffirm Constitutional role of Civil Services: Reforms must align with Article 312, parliamentary accountability, federal integrity, and political neutrality. Efficiency cannot come at the cost of judgement.

Conclusion:

• Systems do not fail because they are slow; they fail when judgement, institutional memory, and principled dissent are sidelined.
• The challenge is not to choose between accountability and autonomy, but to design a framework of Civil Services reforms where both reinforce each other.