ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with various aspects of targets which may be set for a public enterprise. It provides a discussion of the concept of targets, and the reasons why it is desirable to set them. Obligations, objectives, targets, and performance aims are used, at random, as substitutable terms in the literature on public enterprise. The underlying purpose is about the same in all cases. At the risk of being considered a semantic exercise, some distinction among the terms seems to be desirable. Objectives may be understood to refer to reasonably indicative and enterprise-specific enunciations, even if unqualified, of what an enterprise is expected to accomplish. Governments which have no experience of setting targets should realise that the ‘contract’ method is more complex. Adequate technical work is a prerequisite for the success of either method. Corporate planning can help in the exercise. The essential merit of a system of targets or a contract is that it exists.
