3.3 The Prime Minister has set out the Government's four principles of public service reform1:
• national standards, which means working with hospitals, schools, police forces, and local government to agree tough targets, with performance independently monitored so that people can see how their local services compare;
• devolution, whereby central government has to give successful frontline professionals the freedom to deliver;
• flexibility, which means removing artificial bureaucratic barriers which prevent staff improving local services; and
• choice, acknowledging that customers should increasingly be given the kind of options that they take for granted in other walks of life.
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1 Reforming our Public Services, March 2002.