Letters | 19 September 2009

Clever culling

Sir: As the chairman from 1995 to 2000 of the government’s biggest and most worthwhile quango, the Environment Agency for England and Wales, I would like to make two comments on Dennis Sewell’s article (‘Cameron must cull the quangos’, 5 September). Sewell seems to think that the Nolan Principles introduced by John Major’s Conservatives have banished cronyism in public appointments. I am afraid that exactly the opposite is the case. The shortlist review which is passed to the minister is so general that it positively invites the use of patronage and personal preference. When I and my independent colleagues tried to order our shortlist from one to three, we were told that wasn’t necessary. All that was needed was our assessment of the applicants. On the occasion in question, the minister chose his trade union crony, who in our view had come last.

Second, he suggests that the solution is a mass cull of quangos, which misses the point entirely.