The effects of government policy on performance planning for implementation of performance contracting in the government ministries in Kenya

The study sought to analyse the effects of government policy on performance planning for the implementation of performance contracting in government ministries in Kenya. A mixed-method type of design was adopted. Stratified sampling was used to sample four government ministries. In sampling staff to be interviewed, top and middle-level management totalling 831 were identified. Thirty per cent of the 831 (249 staff members) were considered to be representative enough for the study. The study adopted descriptive and inferential statistics. The study used ANOVA, regression analysis, and correlation to analyse the relationship between variables. The study finding observed that there was a strong correlation coefficient of 0.866 at p-value of 0.035 between government policy and performance planning, which implied that employees' performance planning is significant in the implementation of performance contracting; a unit standard deviation increase in effective training and development was likely to increase the standard deviation of performance monitoring by 0.096 on implementation of performance contracting; a unit standard deviation increase in top management commitment was likely to increase the standard deviation of performance reporting on performance implementation by 0.337. The study concludes that government policies have an effect on performance contracting in government ministries in Kenya. Further, the conclusion was that government policy has minimally addressed issues of training and development. Therefore, it is recommended that transfer of training be included in the next reviews of the government policy and specifically addressed in the workplace that often affect the impact of training and development.