The large number of performance measures does not always lead to an increased understanding of individual prison performance

2.27 The number of KPTs has increased in recent years. We ranked the prisons according to their performance against those KPTs which directly feed into the Prison Service's KPIs. The ranking was almost identical to that which was produced by using all KPTs (Figure 19). This suggests that there is scope to focus on a smaller number of KPTs and check them regularly to ensure that the data is valid. Although the KPTs which are not linked to Prison Service KPIs may provide information which is useful to Prison Service senior management, the process of comparing prisons would be simplified by focusing on a smaller number of targets and may make it easier to incorporate PFI prisons into that comparison.