26 October 2007
The new generation of Public Service Agreements are not old-style performance targets by another name, Andy Burnham insisted to the Treasury select committee this week.
The chief secretary to the Treasury, giving evidence on the Comprehensive Spending Review, told MPs that the new PSAs covering the 2008–11 period represented a drastic slimming down of centrally driven targets, which have been heavily criticised in the past.
Labour committee member Mark Todd said that if these 30 PSAs were added to the 103 departmental strategic objectives, which set out each ministry's core objectives, then the total was greater than the 110 PSAs that apply at the moment.
But Burnham rejected suggestions that this meant the reduction was more cosmetic than real. He said: 'My wish to see a reduction of targets on the front line is a genuine one, I do not want to see a reintroduction of them by the back door.'
He pledged that when suites of performance indicators are published by Whitehall departments for their delivery bodies later this year, there will be far fewer, as was the case with the recent local government performance indicators.
Burnham also issued a stark warning to ministries and public bodies on the efficiency targets of annual cashable savings of 3%. He said that they should not rely on funding top-ups, such as those received by local government in recent years.
'If they [public bodies] do not extract these savings they will not be able to deliver their spending plans,' Burnham added.
The chief secretary was also asked about the population figures used to calculate the CSR allocations.
Projections published by the Office for National Statistics on October 23 suggest the UK's population will rise to 65 million by 2016, rather than the 63.3 million predicted just two years ago. But the spending allocations were based on the old figures, with their more conservative assumptions about immigration, birth rates and life expectancy.
Burnham, however, said population change had been 'very much a part of the planning process' for the CSR.
PFoct2007
