IF it leads to an improvement in governance then it is always better late than never — but what exactly does Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have in mind when it comes to summoning the cabinet and requiring each minister to evaluate his own performance against a set of criteria given by the Prime Minister’s Office?

Clearly, at the very least, the administration is hoping to send out a message that it is serious about the business of governance, a major political priority given there is universal consensus that the government has failed to meet the high expectations attached to it. But is Mr Sharif really prepared to go beyond theatrical flourishes and take the hard decisions that will be necessary to turn around this government’s policy and administrative record?

The process of ministerial self-evaluation that will begin on Oct 28 is hardly a promising starting point: why would any minister with a mind to staying on as minister, even if with another portfolio, self-evaluate his department’s performance in any meaningful or critical way that could jeopardise his future?

Far more relevant, then, could be the already completed assessments by the Prime Minister’s Office of individual cabinet members.

Yet, even if the prime minister already has before him the world’s most blunt, focused and piercing analyses of his entire cabinet, what matters is what he chooses to do next. Specifically, on the personnel front, will he be willing to let go of the old guard that dominates the upper echelons of the party leadership and allow younger, more dynamic and hungrier PML-N parliamentarians to have more seats at the cabinet table and a greater voice?

A cabinet reshuffle is essential — the anaemic results over the first 16 months of a five-year term demand that — but if it means getting the same old faces to switch portfolios, then governance can hardly be expected to improve. But there is a subsequent, possibly bigger problem — assuming a cabinet reshuffle does lead to more dynamism and new faces.

What is the overall policy direction that the ministers will be following? Getting to grips with administration alone — running a ministry effectively, ensuring targets are achieved, being able to see projects through to completion — is simply not adequate anymore.

Serious and meaningful structural reforms are needed to put state and society on a more stable, growth-orientated and equitable path. But reforms have not been part of the government’s agenda so far. Is the prime minister willing to change that?

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2014