Dr Richard Norrie is director of the Statistics and Policy Research Programme at Civitas
Quangos tend to divide opinion on political lines. When listing the ideological preoccupations of the BBC, Peter Sissons said, in the view of most who work there, “quangos are also mostly good, and the reports they produce are usually handled uncritically”. For many outside the left-liberal bubble however, particularly among certain sections of the political right, they amount to the Devil’s dumplings of governance. Why the bad reputation?
Certainly, there is much ammunition in the case for the prosecution. In recent times, we have seen some spectacular failings. The Bank of England failed to predict and rein in inflation, despite this being its chief responsibility. The pandemic saw the British Business Bank losing billions to fraudulent claims. The Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) failed to crack down on massive amounts of water leakage and sewage dumping. It can take months to get a driving licence from the DVLA, which sent everyone home during the pandemic, leaving nobody to answer the mail. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) put us all under house arrest based on wild predictions.
That effectively ran as a closed shop, excluding sceptics of lockdowns, as well as failing to consider the knock-on effects on things like the economy and education. It took the then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak to inject into its deliberations the correct knowledge that the Omicron variant was mild and no further lockdown would be needed.
In addition, we will see our blessed quangos undertaking modish political tasks that are hugely ambitious, often venturing into the realm of societal engineering with regard to things like gender and racial equality, as well as the new hair-shirt morality of ‘net-zero.’ Consider the Bank of England’s ‘LGBT+ charter’ which it encourages other financial institutions to sign up to, as if one Stonewall was not enough. That is certainly not the case for the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which has not one, but two memberships of Stonewall’s much-celebrated Diversity Champions scheme; one for England and one for Wales.
Or consider the British Business Bank’s ‘Investing in Women Code’ which is a “commitment to support the advancement of female entrepreneurship”, irrespective of the Bank (which is not even a bank) failing to increase the amount of money lent to smaller businesses. Despite Ofwat failing to plug leaky pipes, it finds time to run a series of ‘Outside in Talks’ that included such titles as ‘Rewilding Britain – the story so far’ and ‘Celebrating Trans Women’.
For all we might weep and wail with ample cause, it is worth remembering for conservatives that quangos became more popular as a way to bypass the monolithic elements of the civil service during the Thatcher years. Since then, they have come to take on many of those same characteristics.
Quangos are ill-defined – pretty much any branch of government that has a reasonable degree of autonomy from elected ministers may qualify. The oldest is thought to be Trinity House, established in 1514, which is classified as a ‘non-departmental public body’ (NDPB) of the Department for Transport. It has oversight over lighthouses, buoys, and beacons. Obviously, this is not something requiring much ministerial supervision. But there are many that operate at arm’s-length from ministers that might be considered for being taken back under democratic control.
How many is a moot point, since there is no definite answer as to how many quangos there are. The Office for National Statistics records 854 central government public bodies along with 735 local government public bodies, while official records published by the Cabinet Office record just 295 ‘arm’s-length bodies’ as of 2020. The Coalition Government made much of its proposed ‘bonfire of the quangos’, but whether that took place or not is moot. The number of quangos recorded by the Cabinet Office has declined, with about 1,500 advisory NDPBs listed in 1979, dropping to less than 200 in 2020, with the rate of decline appearing to sharpen in the Coalition years.
But was this real? A report by the National Audit Office found that much of the decline between 2016 and 2019 was ‘in large part driven by the reclassification of bodies and does not reflect a true reduction in the number of bodies delivering across government.’ In that period, 168 quangos were ‘closed’, but this was only possible with 143 being ‘reclassified outside boundary.’ The most recent available figures are for 2020 and showed we spent almost £223.9 billion on arm’s-length-bodies, employing 319,000 people. Figures for 2021 are apparently long overdue and should have been published around June of last year.
This week Civitas, the think tank where I work, will publish a new book on the failing quango state. We have some modest proposals intended to re-exert democratic control over the quangos, including maximising parliamentary accountability and ministerial discretion, in order to clamp down on some of their excesses. Quango bosses should be held to account, pay performance-based, comprehensive statistics published, scheduled public meetings held. Perhaps it is time to start to learn to love quangos; perhaps with greater democratic control, such a romance would be possible. But ultimately, we see the same problems in government ministries proper, with the civil service frequently at odds with the government.
The Foreign Office oversaw the shambles of the Afghan evacuation; the Department for Education oversaw the exams fiasco during the pandemic, while the Home Office is responsible for whatever it is the Home Office has done this time. Ultimately, constitutional tinkering is no match for getting a grip.
Dr Richard Norrie is director of the Statistics and Policy Research Programme at Civitas
Quangos tend to divide opinion on political lines. When listing the ideological preoccupations of the BBC, Peter Sissons said, in the view of most who work there, “quangos are also mostly good, and the reports they produce are usually handled uncritically”. For many outside the left-liberal bubble however, particularly among certain sections of the political right, they amount to the Devil’s dumplings of governance. Why the bad reputation?
Certainly, there is much ammunition in the case for the prosecution. In recent times, we have seen some spectacular failings. The Bank of England failed to predict and rein in inflation, despite this being its chief responsibility. The pandemic saw the British Business Bank losing billions to fraudulent claims. The Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) failed to crack down on massive amounts of water leakage and sewage dumping. It can take months to get a driving licence from the DVLA, which sent everyone home during the pandemic, leaving nobody to answer the mail. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) put us all under house arrest based on wild predictions.
That effectively ran as a closed shop, excluding sceptics of lockdowns, as well as failing to consider the knock-on effects on things like the economy and education. It took the then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak to inject into its deliberations the correct knowledge that the Omicron variant was mild and no further lockdown would be needed.
In addition, we will see our blessed quangos undertaking modish political tasks that are hugely ambitious, often venturing into the realm of societal engineering with regard to things like gender and racial equality, as well as the new hair-shirt morality of ‘net-zero.’ Consider the Bank of England’s ‘LGBT+ charter’ which it encourages other financial institutions to sign up to, as if one Stonewall was not enough. That is certainly not the case for the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which has not one, but two memberships of Stonewall’s much-celebrated Diversity Champions scheme; one for England and one for Wales.
Or consider the British Business Bank’s ‘Investing in Women Code’ which is a “commitment to support the advancement of female entrepreneurship”, irrespective of the Bank (which is not even a bank) failing to increase the amount of money lent to smaller businesses. Despite Ofwat failing to plug leaky pipes, it finds time to run a series of ‘Outside in Talks’ that included such titles as ‘Rewilding Britain – the story so far’ and ‘Celebrating Trans Women’.
For all we might weep and wail with ample cause, it is worth remembering for conservatives that quangos became more popular as a way to bypass the monolithic elements of the civil service during the Thatcher years. Since then, they have come to take on many of those same characteristics.
Quangos are ill-defined – pretty much any branch of government that has a reasonable degree of autonomy from elected ministers may qualify. The oldest is thought to be Trinity House, established in 1514, which is classified as a ‘non-departmental public body’ (NDPB) of the Department for Transport. It has oversight over lighthouses, buoys, and beacons. Obviously, this is not something requiring much ministerial supervision. But there are many that operate at arm’s-length from ministers that might be considered for being taken back under democratic control.
How many is a moot point, since there is no definite answer as to how many quangos there are. The Office for National Statistics records 854 central government public bodies along with 735 local government public bodies, while official records published by the Cabinet Office record just 295 ‘arm’s-length bodies’ as of 2020. The Coalition Government made much of its proposed ‘bonfire of the quangos’, but whether that took place or not is moot. The number of quangos recorded by the Cabinet Office has declined, with about 1,500 advisory NDPBs listed in 1979, dropping to less than 200 in 2020, with the rate of decline appearing to sharpen in the Coalition years.
But was this real? A report by the National Audit Office found that much of the decline between 2016 and 2019 was ‘in large part driven by the reclassification of bodies and does not reflect a true reduction in the number of bodies delivering across government.’ In that period, 168 quangos were ‘closed’, but this was only possible with 143 being ‘reclassified outside boundary.’ The most recent available figures are for 2020 and showed we spent almost £223.9 billion on arm’s-length-bodies, employing 319,000 people. Figures for 2021 are apparently long overdue and should have been published around June of last year.
This week Civitas, the think tank where I work, will publish a new book on the failing quango state. We have some modest proposals intended to re-exert democratic control over the quangos, including maximising parliamentary accountability and ministerial discretion, in order to clamp down on some of their excesses. Quango bosses should be held to account, pay performance-based, comprehensive statistics published, scheduled public meetings held. Perhaps it is time to start to learn to love quangos; perhaps with greater democratic control, such a romance would be possible. But ultimately, we see the same problems in government ministries proper, with the civil service frequently at odds with the government.
The Foreign Office oversaw the shambles of the Afghan evacuation; the Department for Education oversaw the exams fiasco during the pandemic, while the Home Office is responsible for whatever it is the Home Office has done this time. Ultimately, constitutional tinkering is no match for getting a grip.