Quangos cull criticised

The government has been urged to reconsider its ‘bonfire of the quangos’ after Parliament’s Public Administration Committee found that the process was ‘poorly managed’.

The committee, set up to examine the quality and standards of administration within the Civil Service, is largely composed of Conservative members. Its report, released today, found that the government’s review of 192 public bodies was: “poorly managed. There was no meaningful consultation, the tests the review used were not clearly defined and the Cabinet Office failed to establish a proper procedure for departments to follow. It is important that the Government learn lessons from these mistakes as it has indicated that future reviews are likely to be run in broadly the same way. To ensure their effectiveness future reviews should not be conducted in a similar way.”

The cull of the quangos, or non governmental bodies, was a key pledge of the coalition government. Some 192 government agencies were to be scrapped, with a further 118 merged and 171 substantially reformed. The list of reviewed quangos was extensive and included eight Regional Development Agencies, the Government Equalities Office, Standards Board for England, and the Caribbean Board.

However the PAC found that instead of purely scrapping a vast swathe of quangos, many of their functions should have been transferred to charities.

“Doing so would have helped explain more clearly its vision for a Big Society, giving these organisations the ability to provide more government services,” said the PAC.

“It should also have used the review to get control of some activities of public bodies that provide questionable benefit to the taxpayer, most notably the use of public funds for lobbying and public relations campaigns.”

Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative chairman of the committee, said: "I suspect that in the short term the reorganisation will now cost more than it will save. This was put together on the hoof and can be much improved for future reviews."

Jon Trickett, Labour shadow minister for the Cabinet Office called for the review to be put on hold while a review is carried out.

He said: "This proves the chaos theory of government. They are producing an irrational, unaccountable and expensive mish-mash of proposals, which will do nothing to improve the quality of services to the British public."

Dominic Bascombe