A committee of MPs has accused the Home Office of being too relaxed in its approach to target setting.

In a new report, the Commons home affairs select committee says the department should set "realistic but stretching" - setting quantifiable goals, rather than aspirations that cannot be accurately judged.

The finding came despite widespread criticism that the government has become too concerned with meeting targets, rather than actual performance.

But the cross-party committee of MPs concluded that Charles Clarke's ministry has reacted to unhappy experiences, particularly on asylum, by becoming too vague in its ambitions.

It found that current public service agreements (PSAs) - which are agreed with the Treasury in exchange for cash commitments - are too often merely a "desired direction of progress".

"In a sense, they are not targets at all: they define what the Home Office seeks to improve, but not by how much," the report said.

In particular, the correctional services suffer from too few defined goals, with the prison and probation services lacking clear targets on the level of re-offending.

The policy may stem from the department dropping its recent aim of removing 30,000 failed asylum seekers per year and having come under pressure to meet the prime minister's challenge of halving the number of asylum applications, which it achieved.

The committee concluded that it should tighten up its specific priorities during next year's government spending review, and provide more clarity on how it calculates its targets.