While most people agreed that these measures make the comparisons between schools fairer, many felt that they are still not as fair as they should be. For instance, there may be other reasons outside the school’s control, other than the students’ performance at age 10–11, why a particular school’s exam results are worse than average. Maybe the school is in an economically deprived area, or maybe it has more than its share of students whose first language is not English.

The 2005 English secondary school tables included a ‘contextual value added’ pilot study, where 430 schools were given a score that allowed for several such additional factors. From 2006, a slightly revised version of these scores was published for all schools, and the original ‘value added’ tables were dropped. Yet there is still room for controversy over which factors should be taken account of, and exactly how the calculations are done. And things are now far from simple: we have the original percentage score, several other similar percentage scores taking account, among other things, of whether students have good passed in English and Maths, and the ‘contextual value added’ score. From 2007 an additional, different, contextual added value score was also included, and also yet another percentage (for GCSE passes in Science). And all this is only for the GCSE stage of schooling, there are yet more tables for A levels and for standard tests taken at younger ages.

Different parts of the UK have taken a different line. In Scotland, summaries of public examination results for individual schools are published, but not in any form resembling league tables. In Wales and in Northern Ireland, even less information about individual schools is made available: the devolved administrations in these countries argue that the kind of data published in England is just too misleading.

Meanwhile there are general arguments against targets from many sides. In May 2006, the deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, a doctors’ organisation, blamed bullying of staff in the NHS on a “survival of the fittest culture” caused by “the highly pressurised target ethos in the health service”. But, if we accept such arguments, should we have no targets or performance indicators at all? In that case, would we know how our local schools or hospitals were doing? Would it matter if we didn’t know? Perhaps not, some people argue, if we can be sure that all hospitals and schools are up to standard. But how can we be sure even of that, unless performance is being monitored somehow?

Others have argued that we do not need national targets or performance indicators: people in different places have different priorities and the targets should reflect that. Published school and hospital performance data already have a different basis in Manchester and Glasgow, because of devolution. Why shouldn’t they be different in Manchester and Swindon as well? But when there are differences between areas in service provision, the press are full of stories about ‘postcode lotteries’. Collectively, we don’t seem to be keen on postcode lotteries, but without national performance indicators, we might not even be sure whether they existed.

These are not easy questions. What do you think?

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