The meeting to review the progress reports of 11 Ministries/ Divisions was held in the Prime Minister's Office under the chairmanship of Special Assistant on Establishment, Mr. Mohammad Shehzad Arbab along with Peer Review Committee. The progress reports were based on the goals and targets for 3rd Quarter of the FY 2019-20, agreed upon in the Performance Agreements signed between the Prime Minister and the ministers concerned.
The Federal Cabinet has embarked on setting a new benchmark of performance management. In the pilot phase, Prime Minister Imran Khan entered into performance agreements with 11 ministers earlier this year until June 2020 before scaling across the Federal Government. The spirit behind these agreements is to help ministries undertake a forward planning exercise by identifying high impact initiatives, with clear targets and timelines. Performance Agreements are part of a broader Performance Management System where performance goals of all officers under each ministry will also be aligned and derived from the Performance Agreements between the Prime Minister and the Minister.
The other attendees of the meeting included members of Review Committee, headed by Mr. Jahanzeb Khan, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission and the Secretaries of 11 Ministries/ Divisions who presented their progress reports. The Ministries/ Divisions included Communication, Housing & Works, Power Division, Water Resources, Industries & Production, Federal Education & Professional Training, Climate Change, National Food Security & Research, Ministry of Health, Commerce and Petroleum Division.
"Besides performance accountability, the purpose of the review meeting is to learn the lessons, fine tune the Performance Agreements and replicate the process in all the Ministries/ Divisions from July 2020 after the successful pilot phase." This was stated by Mr. Mohammad Shehzad Arbab during his opening remarks.
Progress of Ministries/ Divisions was reviewed on the basis of their achievement of targets on development, service delivery, policy making and revenue generation, as the targets either been achieved, on-track or off-track under the agreed timelines. The novelty of these performance agreements is that ministries specified interdependencies on other ministries before signing with the Prime Minister. It was discussed that the delays due to interdependencies would reflect on the performance of the concerned Ministry/ Division. The Ministries/ Divisions were guided to complete their targets efficiently and effectively within stipulated timelines.
The participants from the Ministries/ Divisions, on the basis of their practical experience, put forth many recommendations to improve the Performance Agreements for the next financial year. The proposals were discussed in detail and it was agreed to fine tune the Performance Agreements based on these suggestions.
***
