Government agencies will be restricted to giving the top grade on a year-end evaluation scale of 1-5 to only 20 percent of senior civil servants levels 1 through 3, and the two lowest grades to 10 percent. The policy was proposed by the National Assembly in its recent audit of government offices, where it complained that the previous evaluations were too generous and therefore meaningless.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security on Thursday said it decided to set out new guidelines replacing absolute evaluations with relative ones "to create an environment where senior officials can work well. The new guideline will be distributed to each government agency."

The new system is expected to boost the impact of evaluations because the ministry has recently pledged to dismiss senior civil servants that twice receive the lowest grade. Agencies must follow the guideline beginning with the evaluations for 2008, which are being done this month. There are 1,504 senior officials at various government offices.

(englishnews@chosun.com )