Government Targets - the start of the wane?

Four police forces have begun rejecting centrally imposed government targets in the way they police their respective area, in favour of more discretion for the front line officers. David Boyle's article in the Guardian

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_boyle/2008/06/crunch_time_for_numbers.html

says "It is also an emperor's new clothes moment for government targets: if you deny their existence, they lose their power. Whole swaths of the public sector - and local government in particular - will now be emboldened to go the same way."

So is the tide starting to turn against the edifice of arbitrary targets from government and the undoubted damage they cause to innovation, imagination, and professionalism of the people who deliver public services in this country?