§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Blunkett)The Home Office Autumn Performance Report 2003 has been published today by Command of Her Majesty. Copies of the Report are available in the Vote Office and in the Library. The Report is also available on the Home Office website.
The Report sets out the progress the Home Office has achieved towards the key targets set out in the 2002 Spending Review. This includes those targets that the Home Office is solely responsible for delivering and those targets that it owns jointly with other departments such as the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Department's PSA targets were published in the SR2002 White Paper (column 5571) which was presented to Parliament by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 15 July 2002. How progress will be measured, and the success criteria for each target, are set out in the SR2002 Public Service Agreement Technical Notes, published by the Home Office in March 2003 and updated in July 2003.
The Report sets out the latest outturn data against each of the contributory measures from the Technical Note.
The results show: crime is falling; the justice gap is narrowing; asylum is increasingly under control; we have a coherent drug strategy and our correctional services are operating effectively.