The Public Administration Committee of the House of Commons has published a critical report on the Government's cull on quangos which looks unlikely to realise the hoped for savings: Quangos
As I observed in earlier commentary on this subject what you need to do is first decide whether a particular function needs to be performed by government and, if so, whether it is better done by a central government department or an agency.
The Government seems to believe that quangos are less accountable and I think there are senses and circumstances when this is the case. However, the committee makes an interesting point when they state 'Stakeholders and civil society play an important part in providing challenge and criticism of public bodies on a day-to-day basis, and it is easier for them to perform this role when they have a clearly identified body to engage with, not a homogeneous central department.'
One of my concerns in the past has been that some quangos have become (or have been set up as) advocacy bodies and in general I do not think this is a proper role for publicly funded bodies. I do see them as being of value in performing regulatory tasks where ministerial intervention should be confined to clearly defined and limited grounds.
The Coalition Government was hoping to save £1bn from its bonfire of quangos, but Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude had to admit that the savings were 'hard to quantify'.
Showing posts with label Quangos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quangos. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Friday, 15 October 2010
A bonfire of quangos?
As has been noted before on this blog, the key questions to be asked about quangos are: (i) one should the function be performed by government and (ii) should it then be performed by a central department?
As it turns out ministers have discovered that many of the functions performed by quangos are required. Many of them will disappear into central government departments. But whether they will be performed in a more transparent or accountable way there is a genuinely open question.
Many of the quangos that have been retained in their present form have been justified on the grounds that they are 'performing a technical function which should remain independent of government'. Quite.
Others have been re-constituted as departmental expert committees. Consider the Pesticide Residues Committee of which some fun was made on Radio 5 yesterday. It exists because consumers are concerned about toxic pesticide residues on food. These are monitored and the committee supervises this system. So the task is a necessary one and making it an expert committee is hardly going to save any money.
As it turns out ministers have discovered that many of the functions performed by quangos are required. Many of them will disappear into central government departments. But whether they will be performed in a more transparent or accountable way there is a genuinely open question.
Many of the quangos that have been retained in their present form have been justified on the grounds that they are 'performing a technical function which should remain independent of government'. Quite.
Others have been re-constituted as departmental expert committees. Consider the Pesticide Residues Committee of which some fun was made on Radio 5 yesterday. It exists because consumers are concerned about toxic pesticide residues on food. These are monitored and the committee supervises this system. So the task is a necessary one and making it an expert committee is hardly going to save any money.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Quangocide
'Quangos' are a popular target for public expenditure cuts and certainly there has been justifiable concern about the salaries paid in some of these bodies. The term 'quango' was originally invented by Tony Barker of Essex University to refer to 'quasi non-governmental organisations', i.e., private bodies that were 'chosen instruments' for public purposes such as the National Housebuilders Registration Council. In contemporary use, 'quangos' are what used to be called 'quasis' or Non Departmental Public Bodies in official terminology.
Their numbers and size have increased as a result of two main trends which have reinforced one another. First, the move towards the 'regulatory state' so ably traced by Mick Moran, reflecting in turn a more risk averse society and the demands of the media that 'something be done' every time there is some kind of scandal which usually means setting up a new regulatory agency. Another driver is the European Union which is a regulatory state par excellence.
Second, the move towards depoliticisation which tries to take awkward decisions away from ministers and place them in a more technocratic setting. NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, would be a classic example but it has not really succeeded in depoliticising difficult and often inherently emotional choices about spending on drugs, particularly for the terminally ill.
One really needs to ask three questions about quangos:
1. Should the task be performed by government at all?
2. Is it better performed by a public agency rather than a government department? (a trend which started in the 1970s and gathered pace in the 1980s).
3. How can one secure accountability? (This involves not just conventional accountability to Parliament but also accountability to stakeholders).
My direct experience of these bodies is principally in the area of environmental policy where agencies are carrying out tasks that the public seems to want, e.g., cleaning up beaches or polluted rivers or controlling the use of potentially toxic substances. These are not tasks that can be done on the cheap as they require at a minimum techically skilled individuals and often people educated up to PhD standard.
My general impression is that in the health and education area there are bodies that overlap or duplicate one another. Since the Hampton Review, there has been an effort to merge quangos, although the resultant efficiency gains are often not as great as was hoped for.
When one is talking of 17 per cent real terms cuts in public expenditure over three years, quangos cannot expect to escape, but one also needs a sensible debate about what they should be doing and how they should be doing it.
Their numbers and size have increased as a result of two main trends which have reinforced one another. First, the move towards the 'regulatory state' so ably traced by Mick Moran, reflecting in turn a more risk averse society and the demands of the media that 'something be done' every time there is some kind of scandal which usually means setting up a new regulatory agency. Another driver is the European Union which is a regulatory state par excellence.
Second, the move towards depoliticisation which tries to take awkward decisions away from ministers and place them in a more technocratic setting. NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, would be a classic example but it has not really succeeded in depoliticising difficult and often inherently emotional choices about spending on drugs, particularly for the terminally ill.
One really needs to ask three questions about quangos:
1. Should the task be performed by government at all?
2. Is it better performed by a public agency rather than a government department? (a trend which started in the 1970s and gathered pace in the 1980s).
3. How can one secure accountability? (This involves not just conventional accountability to Parliament but also accountability to stakeholders).
My direct experience of these bodies is principally in the area of environmental policy where agencies are carrying out tasks that the public seems to want, e.g., cleaning up beaches or polluted rivers or controlling the use of potentially toxic substances. These are not tasks that can be done on the cheap as they require at a minimum techically skilled individuals and often people educated up to PhD standard.
My general impression is that in the health and education area there are bodies that overlap or duplicate one another. Since the Hampton Review, there has been an effort to merge quangos, although the resultant efficiency gains are often not as great as was hoped for.
When one is talking of 17 per cent real terms cuts in public expenditure over three years, quangos cannot expect to escape, but one also needs a sensible debate about what they should be doing and how they should be doing it.
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
The cuts menu
Gordon Brown has at last uttered the 'cuts' word more than once, but apart from cutting back on civil service early retirement deals was remarkably vague about how he would achieve them given that he wants to spare 'front line services'.
It was evident from one sentence in the speech that he is looking to growth as a way out of his difficulties, but to have any significant impact on revenues one would need to return to a 2 per cent growth rate which isn't going to happen any time soon. Unemployment is also going to rise for some time and will then fall only slowly, increasing the benefits bill.
What is evident is that all three parties will hold back public sector pay as a means of achieving relatively quick savings. There is also something of a consensus emerging that Britain will have to replace Trident with a minimal deterrent.
The Lib Dems have come forward with quite a detailed cuts menu, but then they are not going to have the responsibility of government. They said that public sector pensions would have to be reviewed and that is inescapable. They also called into question the third tranche of the Eurofighter.
However, two of Vince Cable's ideas were less sensible. He took a pop at quangos which always goes down well. But one has to think about this. Quangos were established to carry out a function, usually a regulatory one and generally in response to public demand (or at least a media storm). If the quango is abolished, can the function be dispensed with, or can it be carried out elsewhere more efficiently? For example, if you abolished the Environment Agency, one of the largest quangos, one could not abandon all the functions as many of them are embedded in law and are essential to protecting the environment.
Vince also wanted to cut higher level civil service pay. Britain has a very good civil service, but one needs to pay well to retain the best staff. I wonder how much Vince got paid as a business economist at Shell? With inflation uprating, I would think that it would be a six figure sum.
The polls show a public preference for cuts over tax rises, but that support tends to break down when specific cuts are mooted. The Conservatives seem to have come rather well out of all this. They have been talking about cuts while Gordon was in denial and many voters might well think that if you are going to cut it is best done by a party that believes in it.
It was evident from one sentence in the speech that he is looking to growth as a way out of his difficulties, but to have any significant impact on revenues one would need to return to a 2 per cent growth rate which isn't going to happen any time soon. Unemployment is also going to rise for some time and will then fall only slowly, increasing the benefits bill.
What is evident is that all three parties will hold back public sector pay as a means of achieving relatively quick savings. There is also something of a consensus emerging that Britain will have to replace Trident with a minimal deterrent.
The Lib Dems have come forward with quite a detailed cuts menu, but then they are not going to have the responsibility of government. They said that public sector pensions would have to be reviewed and that is inescapable. They also called into question the third tranche of the Eurofighter.
However, two of Vince Cable's ideas were less sensible. He took a pop at quangos which always goes down well. But one has to think about this. Quangos were established to carry out a function, usually a regulatory one and generally in response to public demand (or at least a media storm). If the quango is abolished, can the function be dispensed with, or can it be carried out elsewhere more efficiently? For example, if you abolished the Environment Agency, one of the largest quangos, one could not abandon all the functions as many of them are embedded in law and are essential to protecting the environment.
Vince also wanted to cut higher level civil service pay. Britain has a very good civil service, but one needs to pay well to retain the best staff. I wonder how much Vince got paid as a business economist at Shell? With inflation uprating, I would think that it would be a six figure sum.
The polls show a public preference for cuts over tax rises, but that support tends to break down when specific cuts are mooted. The Conservatives seem to have come rather well out of all this. They have been talking about cuts while Gordon was in denial and many voters might well think that if you are going to cut it is best done by a party that believes in it.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
A bonfire of quangos?
It's a popular slogan, although Dave Cameron didn't actually use in its speech yesterday. Let's get rid of these unaccountable bodies that are paying high salaries, wasting our money, are unaccountable and are interfering in our lives.
Problem is that politicians actually like quangos because it means they can shift the responsibility and the blame elsewhere. Indeed, it seems that the Conservatives are actually proposing to create some more.
It's interesting how the term is used when in its original formulation by Tony Barker it meant something else: a quasi non-governmental organisation. In other words, a private body that is used for public purposes, sometimes called a 'chosen instrument'. The in vogue collective term today for these bodies is 'third sector'. The correct term for the bodies is Non Departmental Public Body but that is not as exciting as quango which sounds like some kind of Latin American dance routine, perhaps pioneered by Vince Cable.
The question one has to ask about quangos is this: is the function they performe required? If so, is it better done by them or some other body?
If one wants to save money, this can only be done as part of a comprehensive review of what the state does. This was the Canadian approach which is attracting considerable attention today from Dave and others. It makes more sense than just slicing x per cent off everything. But it has to be done properly: for example, one has to ask, are all the procedures carried out by the NHS necessary?
However, one area that the Canadians did slash was agricultural subsidies and we can't do that because of the CAP.
There is much more talk going around of a 20 per cent cut in public expenditure. I doubt whether this is really going to be needed but it is a good way of softening people up for 10 or 12 per cent cuts as then they think they have escaped with a good deal.
Problem is that politicians actually like quangos because it means they can shift the responsibility and the blame elsewhere. Indeed, it seems that the Conservatives are actually proposing to create some more.
It's interesting how the term is used when in its original formulation by Tony Barker it meant something else: a quasi non-governmental organisation. In other words, a private body that is used for public purposes, sometimes called a 'chosen instrument'. The in vogue collective term today for these bodies is 'third sector'. The correct term for the bodies is Non Departmental Public Body but that is not as exciting as quango which sounds like some kind of Latin American dance routine, perhaps pioneered by Vince Cable.
The question one has to ask about quangos is this: is the function they performe required? If so, is it better done by them or some other body?
If one wants to save money, this can only be done as part of a comprehensive review of what the state does. This was the Canadian approach which is attracting considerable attention today from Dave and others. It makes more sense than just slicing x per cent off everything. But it has to be done properly: for example, one has to ask, are all the procedures carried out by the NHS necessary?
However, one area that the Canadians did slash was agricultural subsidies and we can't do that because of the CAP.
There is much more talk going around of a 20 per cent cut in public expenditure. I doubt whether this is really going to be needed but it is a good way of softening people up for 10 or 12 per cent cuts as then they think they have escaped with a good deal.
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