Northern Ireland Policing Board : best value performance plan for 2007-08

This is the Comptroller and Auditor General's fifth report on the Northern Ireland Policing Board's performance plans.

The 28 performance targets for 2007-08 are reasonable and have clear deadlines for achievement, though nine could have been improved with a clear volume or percentage for improvement rather than an unspecified increase or decrease over the previous year.

Some performance targets have been dropped since the previous plan, and some explanation would have been useful.The Policing Board's monitoring of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) appears appropriately designed but, again, some explanation for targets not achieved would be helpful.

The continued use of the best value approach to gaining continuous improvement is questioned, in the light of the move away from this in England and Wales.

The Board and PSNI should consider emerging alternative approaches.