Stop moving the goalposts, says benchmarking expert

However Ross Fraser, chief executive of benchmarking and best practice organisation Housemark, conceded that constant changes to targets and indicators were a serious problem.

Fraser, who heads the National Housing Federation/ Chartered Institute of Housing joint venture, was responding to comments by Audit Commission chair James Strachan.

Strachan attacked the plethora of government targets last week at a hearing of the Commons select committee on public administration. He told MPs that "slavish devotion" to targets would upset improvement attempts. He said the targets were not always appropriate, and were often used as "sticks, rather than carrots … they merely discourage failure, which is not enough".

However, Strachan defended the use of a smaller range of properly agreed and independently monitored targets to improve service quality.

In response, Fraser pointed out that there were only four national targets and nine performance indicators. He said: "PIs have been cut from 13 to nine in recent years.

"The main issue is not the number of PIs but their instability. Changing them undermines the ability to track trends and the scrutiny of accuracy," he said.

Jonathan Charkham, chief commoner (property committee chair) of the Corporation of London, also criticised government methods last week. He told local government representatives that managers were "choking on a surfeit of guidance".