Labour fails to meet two-thirds of its targets

The following recent article from the Telegraph reports government figures which were released the day after C&N, and which show that that Labour has not met its own objectives

By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor

The Government has failed to meet two-thirds of its own targets in a fresh blow to Gordon Brown's credibility. Out of 76 targets set for public spending departments, from transport to health, Labour failed to deliver on 50, leading to new claims by the Conservatives that Mr Brown is "letting Britain down".

Key targets that ministers have failed to deliver on include reducing levels of reoffending; halving children in poverty; raising educational standards in secondary schools; reducing health inequalities; improving the lives of vulnerable elderly people; and getting more people to use public transport.

The failures were unmasked with the release by nine departments of their annual reports. Jack Straw's Ministry of Justice missed seven of its targets, the Department for Children, Schools and Families run by Ed Balls missed eight, the Department for Work and Pensions missed nine and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport missed eight.

Missed justice targets include a failure to reduce youth reoffending by 5 per cent. In fact such crime decreased by only 0.1 per cent. A target to reduce unfounded claims for asylum was simply scrapped.

In education, a target to ensure that 53 per cent of children have "good communication and social development" was judged to have suffered "slippage", as was a pledge to reduce truancy by 8 per cent.

At the Department for International Development, a target to reduce the proportion of people living in poverty in Africa from 48 per cent suffered "major slippage".

A pledge by the Department for Work and Pensions to halve the number of children in low-income households actually resulted in the number rising last year by 200,000.

Major health pledges were also failed, including a target to reduce infant mortality by 10 per cent by 2012.

Commenting on the announcement, Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "If we needed any more evidence about the extent of Labour's failure it has been provided by the Government's own departments. The real losers from Gordon Brown's government are the British people."

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