Minister signals 'target culture' retreat

Last Modified: 18 Jul 2007
By: Channel 4 News

The government has announced plans to cut back on the number of targets set by central planners.

Chief secretary to the treasury Andy Burnham told the Guardian newspaper that "This is the start of a new chapter... We want to give out the message of more trust in public bodies."

In particular, the Public Service Agreements set by the treasury will be scaled back from more than 100 set in 2004 to closer to 30.

The news confirms a report from Channel 4 News, that highlighted some of the absurdities of the government's target regime.

A Channel 4 News online survey found that progress on 44 out of 101 targets was behind

schedule, with the Department for International Development, the Department of Work and

Pensions, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs performing worst.

Perversely, the Home Office, a department so dysfunctional it has been split in two, was

performing well under its PSA targets. And the Treasury set itself such easy targets that it

was able to meet all but one of them.

Burnham defends the target strategy as "absolutely critical" for the first 10 years of Labour's

time in office. They have been successful in driving improvements in some frontline services,

such as improving literacy at primary school level and reducing operative waiting times.

But critics have pointed to an excess of targets - at one point there were more than 600 - diluting the focus which the target regime was meant to bring to government departments.

One reason which has been put forward for the excesses of target culture during the latter half of the New Labour period was the tension between Gordon Brown's Treasury and the Tony Blair's attempts to drive performance.

Targets have also been blamed for causing departments to ignore the delivery of key services which were not targeted. In fact, NHS targets helped to contribute to the NHS deficit crisis, as the NHS's own chief economist has himself argued.

One reason which has been put forward for the excesses of target culture during the latter half of the New Labour period was the tension between Gordon Brown's Treasury and the Tony Blair's attempts to drive performance, such as the Delivery Unit.

Now that Blair's departure resolves that tension, the political purpose of many of those targets has gone.

The new targets will be finalised by ministers at the cabinet's public services and public expenditure committee tomorrow, and finalised in the autumn.

Andy Burnham said that the 30 new targets will not apply to individual departments, but will be cross-departmental initiatives, such as reducing the number of older people admitted to hospital.

They will be the main yardstick for assessing the effectiveness of treasury spending in the years up to 2010-11.