institute suggesting that there is no definition consistently emerged during employers 1800 surveyed.

The same thing followed by Williams (2009) that it is difficult to define management performance. It is defined as an integrated and strategic process which delivers a sustained success for organization, through improving the peoples performance of their work and improving as well as developing teams and also individuals (Armstrong 2010). It is further said by Armstrong that performance management contributes to the success of an organization if or when it is used effectively and efficiently because the vital function of management depends on it. The key features of performance management by Williams and McMaster (2009) are: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. identify the objectives of strategy making separately goals for teams/departments A developed plan for activities of performance/identified Outcomes/results must be agreed The Performance reviewed and monitored by appraisal All needs clearly determined for development For encouraging the performance, a reward allocated

The public sector performance management: The performance management is an increasing part of the public sector organizations. A high increasing trend of performing management in public sector organizations and develop the strategy or made changes in it time to time to make progress of staff work efficient and effective towards getting organization

objectives. It was first time used in the public sector organizations in conservative government by early 1990s. Increasing trends to become part of market oriented by public sector organizations, the conservative governments took steps forward to improve and develop accountability standards and targets (Goulding and Harrison 2007). Improving the standards led to form Citizens Charters in 1991, which, later on, triggered in forming many standards in public sector organizations. The Citizens Charter (1991) gave an idea about the performance by creating link between pay of individual and their performance without examining the fact that money, however, motivate the workers/staff. The Local Government Management Board (LGMB) formed in 1993, aiming clearly for the first time to create that management performance is the link between objective and strategy of organization to its people and their jobs. After some research findings, the LGMB create also a link of reward strategies to performance management. The most public sector employees by means are labour intensives, for that purpose the performance and ability of staff needed capitalise. By following this approach, to achieve the advantage of human capital is the main focus and goal of performance management by pointing out the individual staff as the very important root of the capital advantage (Armstrong & Baron 2005).

The information, decision making cycle of Passenger Focus The performance model of management of the Passenger Focus varies on very individual based and don not allow the performance of team. The sequence of the performance management elements which also called its cycle are:
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i) ii) iii) iv) v)

Familiar to the strategic objectives To develop the best routes for team which meet the objectives Planning and developing separately targets for individual and their outputs Evaluate the performance time to time base Forming rewards and plans for the personal development

This research will test the applications in details and theory for reasonable appearance. The model of The Passenger Focus is mainly captured by its HR department, with the exception of circulation of notice to managers, there is no any type of training is given for the development or improvement. According to Williams (2002) the regularity of application ensured by recommended trainings into the company cycle of performance management.

The Appraisal of Performance: Performance appraisal is the most important and increasingly considered for the practices of human resource (Boudreau and Boswell 2002). Connecting to performance, Birds (2003) arguing about performance appraisal that producing what and how. With prior to this research commencement by author in a workshop, described the performance appraisal such as a measurement of doing which and what as well as how to complete the process. A reasonable system did not deliver, mentioned by author in his previous research into the performance managements effectiveness among The Passenger Focus predecessors (Rail
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Passenger Council). It was seen corporately to be ineffective the organization, the excellent or good rated more than ninety percent (90%) of staff. It follows the comment of Brumbach (2003), in which, who indicates the system of appraisal could be as ritual annual dishonest. There is a large number of research suggests that in some cases it is not practiced well. The performance appraisal, as right of yearly passage, gives rise to frighten and dread for the most managers suggested by Pregitzer and Roberts (2007). Morin, St-Onge, Dupuis and Bellehumeur (2009) drawing a collective number of surveys which show appraisal dissatisfaction worldwide, the research conducted over 50,000 respondents, only 19% (6% of executive and 13% employees) reveals as useful the companys process of appraisal. Brown (2001) quotes the major and serious problems for performance appraisal in Tower Perrin. Further he quotes the training is very important particularly for managers. The key finding of Hartle (1997) were: Managers are responsible for taking process but they do not take it seriously. The insufficient efforts or work involving whole staff. Improper and weak communication delays the process of effectiveness. The systems are so egoistic, remote and troublesome. There is irregular, unfair and erratic rating.

Western and Wilson (2001) suggesting the current procedures of appraisal level in staff by comparing as a free trip to a dentist. Apart from distrust and to criticise, the performance appraisal works as to enclose firmly the private and public sector. Here it has been said by (Morin, Bellenhumeur St-Onge & Dupuis 2009) the managers

and rest of employees without agreeing to accept filled with inaccuracies they welcome the systems of performance appraisal.

The Review of orgnization performance A detailed review of literature on performance appraisal should be starting with the aims and objectives of appraisal system. A change in thinking approach on benefits of appraisal system has been moving on time to time. It was best demonstrated in early literatures by Stewarts and Stewarts in (1987) defining, from the perspective of organization, the advantages or benefits. In 1997 Kleiner and Boice gave suggestion to let employees become known about comparison of their work or performance with the expectations of their manager. This is, however, again a one dimensional view. A more balanced view is taken by Fletcher (2006), suggesting that to be constructive and useful for performance appraisal, for appraisee and appraiser, there needs to be some in it. Here tends of performance appraisals common purpose is to be aimed at individuals measurement and also consider that this is the insufficient focus. From the organizational perspective view, the successful system of performance management plays a very important and a key role in achievement of organizational corporate goals. It is argued above that the performance managements central component is the performance appraisal, so for an organization it must be that, the performance appraisals purpose is attainment of organizations corporate goals. Humphreys and Caruth (2008) adding their views with suggesting it as an imperative business because the system of performance appraisal, which includes the characteristics, to meet or achieve needs of organization and to all of its stakeholders (including staff and management).
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in expansion of performance appraisal. The guidelines of passenger focus do not clearly define that, which has to conduct appraisals but over all accepted that by line performance appraisal between experiences and expectations. The initial findings Managing Information on 1 to 10 scale basis in the self completed questionnaire. The impact was considered a small return rate on the findings because of relatively the small size of organization (46). The appraisal systems concerns were raised in form of literature review as seen just to tick boxes the options. It was unwise considered by adding their box ticking burden, when, for any staff who was identified with that issue. In addition, from following the above text mentioned on case studies in purpose to get the understand in depth, it was, however, felt that the completed questionnaires would not give enough material to author in order to really tell the story. The questionnaires also limit the respondents ability in order to explore their own views and interpretations of appraisal, performance and outcomes because it does not have any option which allows for free format answers. Furthermore, very recently a depth survey about the opinions of employees had been carried out, and in order to cover performance appraisal a small element added in it with other form of feedback also. The findings and conclusions of research will be informed primarily by the qualitative interviews, but, however, if possible some triangulations will be attempted with the survey results of that survey. More human, face to face discussions, one to one and also one to many (focused groups) approaches was adopted in order to give the research a real depth. A detailed review of performance appraisal and performance management had been carried out. This created a path for the

researcher in form of a frame for issues plot developments and recent history within the subject matter of researchers areas of survey and analyse experiences and expectations of appraisal performance and appraisal management from other organizations. The following process was followed to answer the questions regarding research by providing further empirical evidence. A focus group with forum of staff A semi structured interviews with the appraises A number of options were considered in order to collect the actual data from interviews. It was very important to capture accurately and correctly the points made by respondents and also pay full attention to what were they saying about. For this reason, it was very helpful and recommended the transcripts of tape recorded. For the business purposes, the author had used, a secretary offering her services for subsequent transcripts and short hand notes taking. For confidentiality reasons this was ruled out as primarily, but converting transcripts into summary notes would have been avoided. Taking notes was final option by the author. It had a drawback of potentially to make weak the validity and enhance the researcher bias that was chosen. As it is the work of researcher, he had an experience in taking notes and in active listening he has had coaching. In terms of maximizing the efforts of efficiency the approach was most convenient used by the author himself.

The focus group

A focus group could be described as a group of individuals are brought together to have a free flowing discussion but must be on a particular focused subject (Fisher 2004). This research purposes from the focus group is to bring out two outputs. Firstly, in order to satisfy the necessary research objectives in details, the literature review identifies the following issues; The performance appraisals purposes, Design of the system, Executive or delivery of performance appraisal and Outcomes With all important factors considered, the researcher would give confidence by conducting the focus group. Secondly, the outputs or results would be important and also helpful from focus group in order to contribute to get overall findings and it would also help to key out the gap scale between experiences and expectations. In new organizations there is no union representation, with the creation of staff forum the senior managers were given the opportunities to receive and give communication and also important feedbacks. The all focus group attendance was on basis of voluntarily. A five minutes presentation was given by researcher on the objectives of academic in research project at staff forum by asking to explore the issues in an open manner for an hour. Any could decline to take part in group. For this research the methods chosen a text based presentation responses which lend themselves and will also contribute to tell the story. Naturally the strategy of research is very qualitative. In some way to quantify the scale of gape, will be graded in each of the key themes for expectations approximately 1 to 10 and also same for the experiences.

Ethical consideration It was seen that the Author is well known in small organizations to all members of staff and was also a member of executive team, the ethical considerations were high in the organization. The purpose of qualitative research is to provide and help to understand the subject matters deeply and the response quality relied on honest and open answers. Like this, it was very important that participants had a very high level of trust in honesty of researcher. A commitment of high confidentiality and anonymity was given by researcher to the all participants members of focus group. An opportunity of reviewing the summary of interviews was also offered to interviewees which is included in the findings of this research. Within the focus group the discussions were facilitated by the researcher. Within focus group the anonymity would have been impossible; a commitment was given by researcher not to attribute the individual comments. At last, the anonymity was assured who took part in activities of semi structured interviews. The interviews were held privately. The confidentiality, in order to that the all data will be used to inform purely to this research, was given to all participant members and their suggestions will lead to bring improvements in performance appraisal system of the passenger focus group. The data was shredded, after the completion of study. To remove the conflicts of interests and to avoid bias, the researcher ensured, that all members who participated not to respond the line reports or to line managers to researcher. The use of semi structured interviews helped to avoid the bias of interviewer which, however, was used consistently throughout the whole system. Furthermore, some opportunities were given to participants in order to review and read the summary of observations and subsequent notes. However, to ensure in order to a given consent was gained, the key purpose were also advised to the all participants of this present
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research in order to fulfil this dissertation for an academic research purpose. They were advised also regarding the findings those could be used and help to improve the present system of performance appraisal. However, all respondents and participants were satisfied in order to participate with the knowledge basis. The present system of performance appraisal (expectations and experiences) Without prompting, all the respondents have raised an issue regarding training and guidelines as very important requirement. This is particularly highlighted as an expectation by all five managers. More than 60 percent considered that training would be beneficial for appraisers as well as appraisees. The expectations overall were high. The issue regarding experience from training and also guidelines came across as experiencing the most negative way, even with no any positive comments received at all. This left and makes a biggest and difference gap between experiences and expectations. This was happened similar with the documentations, which was given to interviews. The expectations were suggested for a robust system that ensures in order to cover all issues. But there was a lot of negativity once again. The three respondents of all junior level staff members appeared satisfied. But on other hand all five managers were critical about currently use of documentation. There is again a significant gap noticed. For feedback methods, there was a mixed support for multi-source feedback. In case of implementation and executed properly, a consideration of 360 feedbacks would be useful, mentioned by all five mangers. From junior staff members, only one member expected further feedback from the appraisal. The remaining four members, however, were sceptical. Within passenger focus, in terms of experiences, all respondents will receive feedback from their managers only, which is the part of current system of performance appraisal. The main gap appears between experiences and expectations in the views of those
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mangers who are appraised but not from the staff members. It suggests that a feedback system of two tiers could be trialled, with receiving of managers multisource feedback. There is a suggestion of two respondents that it should be attainments of objectives, if it is seemed in terms of what appraised. Two further efforts added for consideration of what should be appraised. Including all five managers, the remaining six expected behaviours, expected objectives and all competencies to be measured. For this the experiences were mixed. These all were mixed against the mentioned objectives. From all participants the 50 percent responded by favouring that the appraisal conversation has also covered the skills or competencies and behaviour. A lack of consistency is applied here. The current system of rating was considered by all respondents. A rating in expectations and experiences considered in this system, where a low rating scored to experiences, while a high scored rating for expectations. The all respondents including five managers and two staff members considered this current and updated system as too much narrow. For avoiding middling, particularly managers suggested a system for the improvement of this current rating system from formally rating system of competencies.

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Financial comparison on upcoming rail fairs in some parts of country 2013-14

From

Destination

Existing fare 2012 in

New fare 2013 in 4860

Change %age 5.9%

Canterbury Kent

London

4588

Colchester Oxford Northampton Cambridgeshire

London London London London

4376 4360 4745 4488

4556 4556 4980 4700

4.1% 4.5% 4.6% 4.5%

The rises could have been steeper but for an intervention by the government to limit the rise to inflation plus one percent, rather than the planned inflation plus three percent increase. Some tickets will rise by less than the average 4.2 per cent, meaning some commuters will be better off than others. This decision puts an average of 45 per year back into pockets of over 250000 annual season tickets holders Norman Baker (the rail minister), further he said many more holders of monthly and weekly season tickets could also see lower fare rises and some

commuters could be over 100 better off. The 4,500 a year season ticket will soon become a reality for thousands of commuters. The rail season ticket holders face average fare rises of 4.2% in January meaning many annual tickets are passing 4500 mark for first time.

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Managing finance The role of financial institutions and their association to the Passenger Focus: The cash requirements of Passenger Focus meet through the grant-in-aid, which is provided by the commercial banks in association with Department for Transport. The financial instruments play very limited role in managing and creating risk than that would apply to public sector. The majority of the financial instruments, in line with passenger focus, relate to contracts to buy items of non-financial are expected usages and purchases requirement and therefore, it is exposed to little credit, market risk or Liquidity. These financial instruments are fully provided by the financial institutions. Without these key finances, Customer Focus cannot perform regular obligations as per law. Through Grant-in-aid the organization is funded from commercial banks or financial institutions and 5.5 million was received in year 2008-09, 0.8 million of which was allocated for the work carried on the National Passenger Survey, and 0.2 million was allocated for the passengers of bus and coach representation. In addition a total of 73,000 fund in this year has been secured by the Passenger focus for joint projects, of a third party income. Including the expenditures on the National Passenger Survey, coach and bus passenger representation the staff and other administration costs of totalled 6.3million for this year and it also include the depreciation cost due to the leasehold improvements in the useful life of Manchester offices.

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The Financial Statements Analysis and report Income from operating activities 2008-09 000s
Income in respect of joint projects Contribution to additional rent costs 73 33 106

2007-08 000s
42 42

Income of joint projects Additional contribution rent costs

Analysis of operating costs and income Rail Passengers 000s

Staff costs Other administrative costs Other income Net expenditure 2,441 3,286 (106) 5,621

bus and coach passenger 000s

95 446 541

2008-09 total 000s

2,536 3,732 (106) 6,162

2007-08 total 000s

2,217 3,165 (42) 5,340

Analysis of staff cost and numbers

2008-09 000s Total costs of staff including the Chief Executive were : Wages and Salaries Costs of social securities Costs of Pensions (see below) Staff Agency 1,906 171 369 2,446 90 2,536 2007-08 000s 1,692 151 339 2,182 35 2,217

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Gross expenditures The employers contributions of 364,000 (2007-08 339,000) for the year 200809were payable to the PCSPS in the range of 17.1 to 25.5 percent at one of the four rates of pensionable pay (2007-08 : 17.1 to 25.5%) on salary based bands. These schemes actually review the employer contributions, following a full scheme of valuation every fourth year. From the year 2010-11 the rates were under the range of 16.7 percent to 24.3 percent. The rates of contribution are set to meet the benefits costs accruing in the period of 2009-10 to be paid when the members retire from the services and during the period to existing pensioners the benefits are not to be paid. The employees also can opt to open a joint account for partnership pension, with an employer contribution of stakeholders pension. The contribution of employer ratio is in 2007-08: nil of 4,560 were paid to one panel or more than one of three appointed panels of stakeholders pension providers. But on other hand, the contribution of employer is an age-related and a range from 3% to more than 12.5% of pensionable pays. The employers match also a contribution of employee up to 3% of pensionable pays. Well, the contributions of employer, in addition, of 498 (201112: nil), 0.8% of pensionable pay, are payable to PCSPS in order to cover the expenses of future lump sum benefits provision on the death in services and ill health causes the retirement of these types of employees. The pensions contribution at balance sheet provides due to the pension of partnership at date were 660.

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Conclusions: This organization has come through a successful path of transformation. The evidence from the survey of Employee opinion recently backed up by the responses of semi-structured interviews and from the focus group, confirms this. In literature review the purpose of performance appraisal was addressed. This included the requirement to review objectives prior to discussions, plan ahead, allocate sufficient time and book a room for comfort and confidence. The experiences were very positive from the passenger focus. All respondents showed that their manager put sufficient amount of time to prepare and that preparation had been beneficial. In meanwhile, the expectations and experiences of performance delivery is demonstrated. The overall research which uncovers a strong interest in the area of subject from respondents, which is, however, encouraging and also can be linked to the motivation level, arises from the successful transformation.

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Recommendation: A new performance appraisal system, as soon as possible, should be implemented and developed and should be incorporated with the following features: Progress against individual objectives with setting and recording of new objectives should clear the business plan. The role and responsibilities should be discussed and clarified. The required competencies and measurement should be identified. The identification of development needs and career aspiration should be discussed. Prioritisation of training and development has been carried on for the sack of innovation and get the employees interest more on the work.

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