The first time I ventured into line management for HM Customs and Excise (as was), my outgoing manager made me a gift of a 1973 civil service textbook on staff reporting. As I’d always been the schoolboy, creeping like snail to appraisals, he obviously thought I needed the help. Even though HMCE (and later HMRC) had training materials, I don’t think any of it rivalled the clarity and unsentimentality of the 1973 booklet. Published by the Personnel Management (Training) Division of the Civil Service Department, it was an attempt to standardise Staff Reporting throughout the Civil Service. 750 draft copies were tested at all grades and departments before the programmed textbook was issued. While self-instruction was a new concept viewed with suspicion in comparison to formal learning, given time and staff hours the booklet judged the best way to roll the system out to over 150,000 reporting officers. The booklet sets out the general principles that staff reporting allows the organis...