The unelected bodies that just won’t die

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.