Easing of red tape by scrapping most Government-imposed public sector targets

Public sector targets to be scrapped - Guardian

Extract:

"A bonfire of government targets to ease red tape affecting schools, hospitals and town halls will be ordered tomorrow as part of a sweeping reform of public services, the Guardian can reveal. Most of the 110 Whitehall-imposed priorities that have dominated the public sector for the past nine years will be abandoned .

Andy Burnham, the chief secretary to the Treasury, is coordinating a move to end one of the defining characteristics of the Blair years by scrapping all but 30 top-down targets used to vet performance.

The targets - from raising the GCSE pass rate to reducing the fear of crime - helped to drive through the big pledges in Labour's election manifestos. But they rankled with doctors, teachers and other public servants who felt their professional discretion had been curtailed.

In an interview with the Guardian today, Mr Burnham set out a new approach, making local service chiefs responsible for setting performance objectives and answering to local communities if they are not ambitious enough. He said: "This is the opening of a new chapter ... If we get this right, the style of government will feel different. We want to give out a message of more trust in public bodies."

Under the system, there will be no more than 30 public service agreements, committing Whitehall departments to use their budgets over the three years to 2010/11 to achieve the government's goals."


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