Downing Street Says » Government Targets

» Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Government Targets

Asked how many targets across Government had been replaced or removed entirely over the last six months, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that he didn’t have the figures to hand. On a more general point about targets, however, it was important for people to recognise that they existed to achieve outcomes and to set national standards. Whether we were talking about health or education, the process was here to stay because that was precisely what they had done. The refinement and adaptation of targets did not mean that we were abandoning the process of setting national standards and trying to achieve them. On the contrary. They had played – and continued to play – an important part in raising national standards overall. Asked if he would agree that targets were changing in part, the PMOS said that reported changes in health targets related to the fact that the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection Improvement (CHAI) would be taking over responsibility for setting standards. As CHAI had made clear today, reports that the hospital star-ratings system was being abandoned were wrong. They were not. CHAI would want to examine how the ratings were applied to see whether they were still relevant and if they needed to change. The actual process of ratings and setting targets, however, remained.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.