The Prime Minister is said to have given his approval to the reviewed procedure for the 360-degree method of selecting candidates for the posts of additional secretaries and secretaries. Reportedly, the Cabinet secretariat figured out quite early that the method had resulted in the exclusion of a number of deserving candidates.  Indianmandarins learnt that it approached the PMO with a request for reviewing the 360-degree method. Following a consideration, the PMO acceded to the request of the Cabinet secretariat. Some of the changes made following the review are significant. Earlier, a four-member committee of former secretaries were provided with a set of five questions (with multiple options) and were supposed to put the questions to five persons across services and batches. Now, under the reviewed procedure, more questions have been added and the sample size of respondents increased to 10 to get a better average picture. It is believed that six IAS officers from 1983 batch and three from 1982 are in the consideration zone and the reviewed 360-degree method would be applied to examine their empanelment prospects. Reportedly, the same may also be applied to the review of 1986 batch empanelment of Additional Secretaries.