Performance‐related Pay and Quality in Higher Education: Part One
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000003448 |
| Pages | 30-34 |
| Date | 01 February 1993 |
| Published date | 01 February 1993 |
| Author | Philip Lewis |
| Subject Matter | Education |
QUALITY ASSURANCE
IN EDUCATION
Performance-related
Pay and
Quality
in
Higher
Education:
Part
One
Philip Lewis
PRP HAS ARRIVED IN HE
The much-forecast storm over performance-
related pay (PRP) in HE has arrived! The
employers' salary offer of 4.65 per cent in 1992-3
included 0.75 per cent to be set aside for PRP
schemes which had to meet their guidelines
which, not surprisingly, proscribed the allocation
by institutions of flat-rate payments to all
staff.
This has aroused the anger of trade unions and
their members who see PRP as inappropriate in a
sector where money has little to do with staff
motivation. This anger has manifested itself in
staff efforts to sabotage PRP schemes imposed on
them by an often unwilling directorate, anxious
not to incur government financial penalties for not
following employers' PRP guidelines. Notable
among these efforts is the lead given by staff at
Coventry University. Here staff have elected to
pool any PRP payments and to redistribute them
equally among themselves (Heron, 1993).
In these two articles, I examine the declared
objectives of the Government in introducing PRP
throughout the public sector. Particular attention
is given to the effect that PRP is likely to have on
the delivery of quality in HE.
The Government's objectives are based on
three major assumptions which, the articles argue,
are likely to be proved flawed in practice. To
support the argument, evidence is drawn from the
literature on PRP, much of it empirically based,
and my own continuing research based on
interviews with personnel and line managers in
public and private sector organizations (Lewis,
Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 1 No. 2, 1993, pp. 30-34
© MCB University Press, 0968-4883
1991a; 1991b). The lessons learned from this
research are then applied to HE with consequent
cautionary messages for those who will be
responsible for the implementation of PRP in HE.
PRP
AND THE CITIZEN'S CHARTER
PRP is a firm tenet of the Citizen's Charter. The
rationale behind this was explained by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer in his reply to a
parliamentary question (24 July 1991):
It is important that pay systems in the public sector
should make
a
regular and direct link between a
person's contribution to the standards of service
provided and
his
or her
reward
...
pay
has an
important
part
to
play
in
raising
the
quality
and
improving
the
responsiveness
of public
services...The Government now wants to introduce
more flexible pay regimes for the Civil Service,
both nationally and locally...The new pay systems
must
be
demonstrably beneficial to the citizen, fair
to
the
employee
and
linked
to the
delivery
of high
quality
public services...This
means developing pay
structures which reward good performance and
penalize bad...The Government has concluded that
the (existing pay) agreements as they stand do not
provide a framework that is fully capable of
meeting the needs of the nineties...I therefore
propose to put
in
place a range of forms of
performance-related pay in order
to
achieve a closer
link between performance and reward, both for
individuals and for groups of staff...(Quoted in
Marsden and Richardson,
1992, p.
1).
The aims in the Citizen's Charter are laudable.
Indeed, the rhetoric linking PRP to these aims is
beguilingly logical, a factor that may account for
the recent widespread popularity of PRP both in
30
To continue reading
Request your trial