Robin
i think the last line of your post hits the nail squalrely in the head.
What place do targets and KPIs have in the met office.Essentially NONE just because it is an INexact science. Just as it is in certain arts of the NHS, Education or the Police. (Mind you after the banking fiasco perhaps they shouldnt be used anywhere.
If one thing more than any other has crippled the UK in the last 20 years it is management techniques being pushed into organsiations who do not have profit as a goal (or shouldnt).
The met office has a simple obvious objective which is to try and produce an accurate foreacst of the weather, Everyone knows its hard to be right all the time but when it s someones objective to be right X% of the time human nature, greed, spin (or lies as its the same thing) all start to play a part and corrupt the process.
Its not an entirely New Labout thing -plenty of Thatcherites pushed the 'accountability' li(n)e in the public sector and I certainly do not rembember them as less decitful or dishonest than todays lot -but NL certainly share the blame for pushing some issues even further and failing to correct errors from the past.
Rant over, the suns come back out