New performance targets for civil servants start

It will not be business as usual for public servants at local governments during the procurement of inputs needed for service delivery. 

The Government has set standards, including expenditure limits on items like reams of paper, meals, per diem, pens and books, which are required during service delivery across local governments. 

Under the Compendium of Costed Service Delivery Standards developed in 2024 by the public service ministry, the Government has set standards for service delivery in nine key sectors across the local governments. 

Under the framework, whose implementation commenced at the beginning of this year, the standards will cover sectors such as education and sports, agriculture, water and environment, health, land, housing and urban development, gender and labour, as well as works and transport. 

Civil servants at local governments who do not follow them will face audit queries, including sanctions that are not limited to demotion or dismissal from service. 

The Government has set sh5,300 as the cost limit for a litre of fuel, especially in hard-to-reach places. For instance, school inspectors will spend not more than sh90,000 in fuel to cover schools within their jurisdiction. 

In addition, local governments will not spend beyond sh120,000 in allowances for inspectors doing regular inspections.

Education 

Relatedly, the Government has tightened performance terms for officials in the education sector, covering district officials, headteachers, their deputies and teachers.

Under the new terms, headteachers must evaluate staff performance every month, ensure that staff attendance is 100% (daily attendance) and keep reports of their activities. 

The headteachers must also maintain a mechanism of tracking learners’ attendance and record the work covered by teachers against the curriculum. 

“They must have reports on the learners’ progress and well-being in school and their continuous assessment,” the policy framework states. 

Catherine Bitarakwate Musingwiire

To ensure quality education, district education officers and headteachers must ensure that the percentage of children aged 6 to 12 attending school is 80%. 

In addition, the responsible officers must ensure that the percentage of survival from Primary Five to Primary Seven, by gender and district, is at 80%. 

The district leadership and school management are also required to ensure that at least 80% of the learners complete Primary Seven. 

At Primary Six, the officials must ensure that learners are rated ‘proficient’ in literacy, covering at least 75% of the learners. 

In numeracy, the proficiency should be at 85% At the Primary Leaving Examinations level, district officials, headteachers and teachers are now required to ensure that 80% of the children in Universal Primary Education schools pass between Division One and Division Three

Education ministry comments 

Frances Atima, the director of education standards at the education ministry, said they had been informed about the new performance standards by the public service ministry. 

Atima said the new performance standards will be used during appraisal of district, municipal and city education officers, as well as school inspectors. 

“Our hope to improve education is vested in the district leadership and headteachers because they implement what the central government sets. These new performance standards will ensure that the district leadership meets the targets,” she said. 

Atima said the performance of learners in Primary Seven, Senior Four and Senior Six is a reflection of the local government education officers and inspectors of schools. 

“The performance standards will be used against performance. Having schools in your area that continue to perform poorly and with no improvement will be used during appraisals of district education officers and inspectors,” she added. 

Atima made the remarks during a week-long training of district education officers and inspectors of schools from the 20 worst-performing districts across the country. 

The training, opened by Dr Kedrace Turyageynda, the education ministry permanent secretary, was held at Iganga Secondary School in Iganga municipality. 

Turyagyenda said if all children who start Primary One complete primary school and join the next levels of education, the country will have achieved the desired national Vision 2040. 

She said no country in the world had developed more than its education, adding that this calls for stringent inspection of schools and ensuring that children and teachers report to school regularly. 

“Our curriculum is excellent and, therefore, we can transform and realise our vision if we implement it to the dot. We can get out of the current shame where children cannot read and have children at Primary Two, who can read,” she said.

Dr. Kedrace Turyagyenda

Health 

Under the health sector, the Government has also set how much should be spent on each health worker from the lowest medical facility to the district hospital level. 

The Government has also set deliverables for officials at each level. For instance, the district and its health centres are now required to conduct monthly inspections of households and public places for sanitary facilities. 

The facilities must conduct community sensitisation once a month, have daily reports on case identification and management, carry out daily referrals and compile weekly epidemiological surveillance reports. 

In addition, the district must conduct quarterly inspections of workplaces, keep daily screening reports, as well as those for maternal perinatal death surveillance. 

As part of the costed standards, village health teams must have five staff, while health centres II should employ nine. Each of these will have a monthly allowance of sh15,000. 

On the other hand, health centres III at the sub-county level will employ 30 staff while health centres IV, located at the county level, will employ 74 workers. 

The general hospital will employ 343 workers. The new standards demand that each sub-county must have two megaphones costing sh100,000 each. 

The Government has limited the district radio announcements to just two, each costing sh50,000. 

Relatedly, health facilities must conduct school health outreaches with two staff and can be done nine times a year in a parish. However, the staff will receive a transport refund of sh20,000.

Why the new standards?

Catherine Bitarakwate Musingwiire, the permanent secretary of the public service ministry, said the new standards are intended to streamline spending and ensure that services are delivered to Ugandans. 

Fred Ojok Ongom, the acting commissioner of public service inspection and quality assurance, said: “The new standards focus on the local governments because that is where the services are offered. The costed service delivery standards are intended to ensure that we eliminate wastage of resources and exaggerations.” 

The document, Ongom said, will guide the responsible officials to spend within set standards, but at the same time ensure that public servants deliver on their mandates. 

“We have also set the minimum level of service that a person expects from us as a government,” he said. 

The public service ministry is expected to distribute the new standards across the respective local governments. 

New Vision has also learnt that the head of Public Service, Lucy Nakyobe, has since written to ministries, agencies and departments, instructing them to develop the new costed standards for the services they offer.