Everything seems to be  target driven these days and whilst this makes sense in the ultra-competitive world of business how can it be relevant in the public sector?  Targets are clearly important in sales where an employee is promised a financial bonus for selling a certain number of vacuum cleaners, fridges, cars or whatever. But, asking a teacher, a policeman or a doctor to reach a target seems pointless.

A teacher is either able to teach or not and the only imponderable (assuming the teacher is competent)  is  the ability or willingness of the pupil to learn. Similarly, the job of a policeman is to apprehend criminals and a good police officer  will arrest criminals as a matter of course, so why have a targeted number of arrests? Perhaps a town’s low number of arrests is due to effective policing which naturally leads to low crime rates. As for doctors, their job is to treat and heal the sick wherever they encounter them so why should a doctor need a target?

In the public sector the only “target” should be to do your job efficiently and effectively to the best of your ability and, provided the right people are in the right jobs, that should be enough.

The problem with the UK public sector seems to lie not with those on the front line (such as teachers, policemen and doctors) but with the hordes of administrators and pen-pushers who clog up the system  and cause unnecessary paperwork for those simply trying to do the job they are paid to do. How about targeting the removal of unnecessary bureaucrats?