The Home Office is "surreptitiously" dropping its targets intended to show how well it is performing on crime, asylum and drug abuse, Oliver Letwin said yesterday.

The shadow home secretary claimed that the changes had only been discovered after a detailed study of the Home Office and Treasury websites.

Although a government spokesman denied that the targets had been abandoned, he did admit that in line with other government departments, the Home Office recognised there was a need to "slim down" the number of Public Service Agreements agreed with the Treasury. The number had been reduced from 18 to 10.