III. Examination of public service agreements
29. During the evidence session with the Permanent
Secretary mentioned in paragraph 26 above, we examined progress
against the targets contained in the Department's 2001-2004 Public
Service Agreements. Performance was below target for six of the
26 targets. The Departmental report contained, in our view, insufficient
information about how the department was addressing this underperformance.
We examined two missed cases of underperformance: debt relief
and primary school enrolment. We were critical of DFID's intention
only to report progress against its new Public Service Agreement
targets. The department should remain accountable for outstanding
targets from previous PSAs, rather than just dropping them with
each spending review. The new PSA contains fewer targets and we
were concerned therefore to ensure that there were satisfactory
internal performance and accountability measures in those areas
which are not now covered by PSA targets.
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