Cabinet secretary Sir Andrew Turnbull has conceded that a culture of red tape and targets is a major issue for many people working in public services.

Interviewed in Friday's Telegraph, the civil service chief said that form-filling was now of greater concern than pay for many teachers, doctors and police officers.

And he revealed that the government wants to reduce back office costs and "streamline" the process.

"We want to move away from it [the targets culture]," Sir Andrew said.

Performance data was too often "vulnerable to game playing" and manipulation, he added.

Whitehall's top mandarin also admitted that there are too many civil servants and pledged to reduce the number working in London.

"We can reduce the numbers and we certainly will reduce the numbers," he said.

"People will be asked to say what they can do to reduce their back office costs and streamline their dealings with the front line."

The interview came after the chancellor confirmed in his pre-Budget report that 20,000 government employees would be moved out London.

Gordon Brown also announced that public service agreements between the Treasury and other departments - which tie budgets to specific targets - would be scrapped.

But Sir Andrew said a wider review of red tape would go further, with an emphasis on outcomes, rather than the means to achieve them.

"Targets sometimes measure the wrong things," Sir Andrew said. "We must improve the validation of them. There was a target to increase the number of farmland birds.

"The easiest way to increase the number of farmland birds is to breed them in cages then release them. But the real outcome you want is better stewardship of the countryside.

"In that case, the target was an indicator of an outcome rather than the outcome itself."