Unruly, bizarre and hungry for your money, Britain’s quangos must be stopped, says Matthew Sinclair
They are our longest-running political horror story. And, under Labour, they have been ever more unruly, increasingly dangerous and always ready to suck the blood of taxpayer’s wealth. For several decades politicians have been discussing cutting the number of Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations (quangos). Back in 1991, even Gordon Brown was talking about it. But it seems Britain’s vampire quangos cannot be killed. The most recent TaxPayers’ Alliance survey found that there are now 1,148 national quangos and other arm’s-length bodies in the UK, spending over £90 billion of taxpayers’ money and delivering huge areas of policy. The next government stands little chance of getting the public finances under control unless it can get a handle on the quangos that spend the money.
Like their Transylvanian counterparts, quangos rarely die. So, to understand how to tame them, the next government must first recognise how they are conceived. A quango is born for one of two reasons. Occasionally, there is a genuine need for activities to be taken out of the hands of politicians. The UK’s official Statistics Authority is a good example of a body that needs to be both taxpayer-funded and independent of government. More often though, quangos are a purely political device. If a politician wants to signal that they are taking action on an issue, they create a quango. Setting up the School Food Trust, for instance, was an easy way to sate demands that ‘something must be done’ after the revelations of Jamie’s School Dinners. Similarly, if they want to avoid responsibility for unpopular decisions, they create a quango to take the decisions for them. The new Infrastructure Planning Commission will ride roughshod over local concerns, allowing the government to cover the countryside with wind turbines.
Some people may conclude that what the next government needs to do is put them on a diet. In many cases that is right. Regulators like Ofgem and the Competition Commission aren’t going anywhere, but they will need to cut costs. One way of increasing the pressure on quangos to control their budgets would be to force them to get that budget approved by parliamentary select committees.
But some vampires cannot be tamed, they must be staked. There are a few reasons why it is important to abolish some bodies outright. It makes a programme of cuts in public spending easier to push through politically. As Sir Richard Packer – former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food – says in our upcoming book: ‘any proposal to cut a programme will incur resistance from those adversely affected… but this opposition will be induced more or less whatever the level of the reduction proposed. Certainly the opposition will not be proportional to the level of the reduction,’ so scrapping one organisation will be less unpopular than spreading the same saving across three or four. At the same time, abolishing organisations will save more money, as it also cuts out fixed costs, from HR departments to expenses for non-executive directors. And finally you also cut the costs associated with the organisation’s demands on businesses and other public sector bodies.
The challenge is to identify which bodies to cut. The political parties have been focussed on across-the-board cuts, such as a public sector pay freeze, while proposals for quangos to scrap are thin on the ground. This must change. Below are a few with which to get started.
Matthew Sinclair is research director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
Quangos to scrap on day one
National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) — £465,000,000
The NPIA has been heavily criticised for high salaries, frivolous expenses and excessive consultant bills (over £70 million in 2007/08). It represents a one-size-fits-all model of policing that is increasingly falling out of favour.
Carbon Trust — £93,580,000
There is no need for a quango to spend taxpayers’ money supporting big businesses attempts to cut their energy bills. They can pay for any advice they need themselves. The Carbon Trust also pursues spurious objectives like encouraging other countries to set up similar bodies, for example with the establishment of Carbon Trust USA.
National College for School Leadership (NCSL) — £82,974,000
The NCSL has had limited impact in achieving its original goals. More freedom for schools so the best heads can prove themselves will do more to foster strong leadership.
Standards Board for England — £10,060,000
Good conduct by politicians can only ever be properly enforced with transparency and accountability to voters. A quango which monitors a code of conduct is no substitute.
School Food Trust (SFT) — £6,436,000
Promoting healthy eating in schools is an objective already served by other programmes, and the real problem of poor food in schools comes down to the government’s obsessive interference in school budgets. The organisation could be scrapped if schools were given more freedom.
Sustainable Development Commission — £3,117,000
Giving unelectable ideologues like Jonathan Porritt – who ran the body for nine years – an expensive soapbox and producing reports attacking the importance of economic growth is not a proper use of taxpayers’ money.
Office for Fair Access (OFFA) — £413,000
The lack of students from poorer backgrounds in higher education isn’t the result of unfair admissions policies but poor performance in schools. Better schools are what’s needed, not a quango policing university admissions.
Comments