An Action Learning Approach to Performance Review and Development: A Case History from the London Borough of Bromley

This is an account of how the London Borough of Bromley introduced an approach to Management Development based around a performance appraisal mechanism (which they call Performance Review) from autumn 1985 to spring 1986. The need for an improvement in management methods and approaches was inspired by a strong and imaginative paper on “survival management style” published by the Chief Executive in June 1985. This was a time when local government in Britain was thinking very seriously about its right to continue doing what it had traditionally regarded as its own. However, the strong guidelines contained in the Chief Executive's paper were not in themselves capable of getting a common approach to better management started on its own. It needed much more in the way of structure and order, and this is what the management development programme set out to provide.