Its the same in every government "service". It's crazy. I worked for a local council for nearly a year... it was demoralising despite excellent colleagues. There's also crazy statistics in the fire service as well. If a man doused himself in petrol and set himself alight in a park and dies, he'd be a "fire death". If someone died in a house fire due to smoke inhalation, it's not a "fire death". At least that's how one service class them, to try and make their numbers look good for targets etc. Relocating fire stations - they would drive an empty fire engine (not carrying water, no staff) on blues and twos, at the quietest time of the day/week (they'd probably do it on Christmas Day) and try and show that Location B is better for response times than station at Location B (using data from a FULL engine at rush hour) and so we must build a new one at huge cost and sell the old one for next to nothing. I'm sure it's the same everywhere. It's why we have more managers - its so they can fiddle the numbers/definitions. Argh!