Expert review of legislation, guidelines on performance appraisal methods and procedures, and competence frameworks. Interviews with the civil service central co-ordination unit and the heads of HRM units. The legislation must meet four basic criteria for a performance assessment system: • Performance is assessed against individual objectives aligned with the functions and level of responsibility of the position (in competence-based HRM systems, the level of attainment of professional competences is also assessed, following a general competence framework); • Civil servants are informed about the objectives on which they will be evaluated; • The results are recorded in written form; • Interviews between the civil servants and their managers are compulsory. Two sources of quantitative data are analysed to assess the implementation of performance appraisals: • The percentage of civil servants whose performance was appraised during the latest full calendar year (the number of civil servants appraised during the assessment year divided by the number of civil servants that were eligible for appraisal, multiplied by 100); • Performance appraisal results (the number of performance appraisal results at each level of the appraisal scale in the latest full calendar year). SIGMA defines “higher performance scales” as those higher than “average”, “acceptable” or similar middle categories. Data relates to the central government administration only. Points are allocated for each of the three following criteria (total of 4 points): • Legislation meets basic criteria for the performance assessment system (2 points); • Performance appraisal is applied to at least 70% of eligible civil servants (1 point); • The proportion of results falling into the higher performance scales is not over 60% (1 point).