National-level campaign tools and strategies

As well as a national membership survey, the PCS produced posters, flyers and a membership application form explicitly linked to the campaign to end PM, and held a day of action. A national petition targeting PM across the whole civil service was signed by more than 10,000 people. Unions also used parliamentary lobbying, including an Early Day Motion supported by 40 MPs asserting “that this House believes that performance management systems operating in central government departments are discriminatory and unfair”.

Unions also made good use of national media. An important campaign tactic was to question whether PM represented “value for money” at a time of limited public resources. In a Guardian article headlined “MOD squanders £100 million a year on Performance Management” (29 June 2016), Chris Dando, PCS MOD group president, showed how the union used a combination of MOD data and detailed feedback from members to calculate the amount of time expended by staff at all levels meeting the bureaucratic requirements of the PM system from start to finish. This produced a conservative estimate of £98 million of taxpayers’ money each year spent running the system – to distribute a £17.5 million performance bonus pot.