Hastings Forum

Agreed as regards The Home Office and its list of failed Secretaries...I would just add though
that I have always regarded Ms Rudd as pretty useless and I believe she got that job only (a) as a ticked box and (b) so as not to outshine the previous incumbent. She succeeded in both but failed the actual job.

It is inconceivable that Rudd had no knowledge of the specific targets set up by May and lied to protect her boss, not because she might have 'outshone' her, but to take the blame.
It was the application of the strict policy of deporting citizens who could not produce passports that was the 'box ticking' failure that led to Rudd's departure as this raised the whole scandal in the first place.
A 'decision-tree' deportation procedure that was not thought out properly in the first place was the cause of the problem and one that Rudd could not easily overturn.
Bureaucracy-gone-mad because state officials should have alerted either May or Rudd to the problems that suddenly got highlighted by the Press. Additionally they should have picked up on the likely issues arising, where 'Windrush' citizens had their identity documents destroyed by the government some time ago.
Rudd attempted to backpedal but the system was too cumbersome and the damage had been done.
As a person Amber Rudd is the only Hastings MP who is likely to be remembered for any length of time.

My poorly worded post has caused some confusion. The box-ticking was giving her the job in the first place. Female/Quotas etc etc. As regards being remembered - I am sure that she will be but not for the reasons she would have liked.

The use of targets is the real issue, targets in education, where teachers pushed pupils onto “soft” subjects (of little value to employers.) to inflate their ranking.
League tables used by parents to rate state secondary schools were skewed accordingly.
Targets in politics, an easy measure for the need to be seen doing something, anything, rather than dealing with the real issue itself. When setting targets people will pull every trick in the book and cut corners to meet the targets.
The toxic targets culture mainly affects the weak and vulnerable, maybe Rudd was not able to overturn the targets on expelling illegals - a good idea to remove illegals, but when it affected commonwealth citizens who had been here for 40 years or more then it proves the case that targets alone are not necessarily a good idea.
One of the fundamental challenges to targets is that they measure what can be counted rather than what matters.
There are targets in the NHS but many have led to dysfunctional behaviour such as 'gaming' data, short-termism, bullying and obsessive checking and assurance activities.
A target is a useful tool for improving services when combined with additional support, but targets should never be the sole arbiter of quality in the NHS, Education, Politics or anything else.