About: Target culture

Target culture is a pejorative term used to refer to the perceived negative effects of rigid adherence to performance targets by businesses and organisations. The term is primarily used to refer to this kind of behaviour within the provision of public services in the United Kingdom. Target culture often stems from not being able to accurately measure a broad social good like health, education or crime prevention: instead, specific target like increasing the number of people passing an examination or the number of arrests made by a police force is used.