The Home Office PSA Aim 5 (SR2002) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (PSA Aim 6, SR2002 and Aim 9, SR2004) share the same objective that policy must be in the ‘interests of … social inclusion’, which might be considered a proxy for ‘integration’. However, neither PSA Aim is supported by specific integration measures.

Nonetheless, there are less precise targets that can be used to come to some judgements, the best of which can be found in PSA Aims that are not overtly connected with migration, in particular Home Office PSA Aim 5 (SR2004), which reads: ‘citizens, communities and the voluntary sector are more fully engaged in tackling social problems and there is more equality of opportunity and respect for people of all races and religions’, an aim – in essence – about race relations and community cohesion, that can be considered here as the best proxy for ‘integration’.

The relevant target under Home Office PSA Aim 5 (SR2004) is Target 7: to ‘reduce race inequalities and build community cohesion’. For the purpose of measuring performance, the two elements in PSA Aim 5, Target 7 (SR2004) are disaggregated. The ‘race’ element is measured by ‘a decrease in the number of people from Black and Minority Ethnic communities who perceive that they would be treated worse than people of other races by one or more key public services and in the labour market, as measured through the Home Office Citizenship Survey’ (with baselines of 2001 and 2003) and the ‘community cohesion’ element by ‘an increase in perceptions of community cohesion, as measured through the Citizenship Survey Local Area Boost’ (baseline 2005). Both elements therefore use surveys as measures.

PSA Aim 5 (SR2004) forms part of the government-wide race equality and community cohesion strategy, known as Improving opportunity, strengthening society (Home Office, 2005b), described in Chapter 3. Two other Public Sector Agreements (PSAs) are closely linked to this strategy, one on reducing ‘the difference between the employment rates of the disadvantaged groups [which includes Black and Minority Ethnic Groups] and the overall rate’ (DWP PSA 4) and one on promoting ‘ethnic diversity’ (DTI PSA 10). In addition, there are six other PSAs where departments monitor progress in tackling race inequalities.