Ministers may face performance reviews

Cabinet ministers are to face individual assessments on their performance under plans by No10 to improve delivery ahead of the general election.

Downing Street is stepping up efforts to monitor the success of each government department to ensure Labour meets its targets on health, transport, crime and education.

The departments will now face tougher targets and will be subject to more rigorous assessment.

The changes will allow Michael Barber, the head of the Government's delivery unit, to gauge how individual ministers are doing their job.

The changes have been ordered by Tony Blair to push through his reforms of the public sector.

A recent report by the delivery unit shows the Department of Health is on track to meet its target that no one waits more than six months for an operation.

But the unit raises doubts about the performance of the transport and education departments.

The unit says schools have failed to build on initial improvements to literacy and numeracy results.

And at the Department of Transport, targets for improving performance on the railways and easing congestion on the roads have been scaled down.

Another high-profile Labour target, to eradicate child poverty by 2020, has been "remodelled". Ministers are now promising to ensure the child poverty rate is among the lowest in Europe.