Targets "let dangerous criminals slip the net"

Targets "let dangerous criminals slip the net" is the headline of this article in the Times today.

The long and short of it is that a police constable or indeed their force gets the same points score for convicting a murderer or pedophile as it does for convicting a burglar.

This comes from Peter Neyroud, chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency who is also a former Chief Constable.

Well, two things spring to mind. Firstly it shows that if you set targets, you need to understand how they can be met, without achieving your ends, and secondly that this government has not got a clue about how to set targets or what effect its targets are having on the ground.