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There is certainly scope to reduce the number of non-departmental public bodies, however there will also be a cost attached. Perhaps Cameron could state how many people he expects to be made redundant as a result of his recycled policy? Surely Dave, given the tories current obsessiveness with truth and the release of i...
Followed by a firework display of choice?
Maybe he can roast some other old electioneering chestnuts on it like cutting public waste?
Surely recycling of the quangos would be better for the New Cons. green agenda? thats what'll happen.
An uncomfortable and unfortunate definition.
Are there not quangos in Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, and, more in modern times in supposely democratic countries?
I hope Cameron DOES set fire to and destroy hundreds of these wasteful bodies. He can start with the unelected Regional Assemblies so emphatically rejected by ballot here in the North East yet undemocratically imposed by NuLab anyway. Oh yes, and Business Link, stuffed with early retired junior Bank managers and ex pub...
He needn't stop there, middle management in Health, Education, Defence and Local Government is massively overstaffed.
The conservatives will merely divert the funds from one set of Quangos & place them with others that they have yet to create.
Im sure Cameron will try to call them another name, but the song will remain the same.
Quangos where Tory manifestations that should be added to the list of things that Labour promised to sort out but, along with so many other things, they shied away from.
Brown loves to create State funded non-jobs for paper pushers & non-productive workers, so Quangos where ideal for him to flex his muscles.
Want to know how to save money Brown, well just get rid of the un elected quangos & jobsworths that cost us billions of pounds to employ.
If not, then reduce the numbers, broaden their remits & strengthen their powers because at present they are as much use to Joe Public as a chocolate fireguard.
PS: Cameron can promise all he likes because hes in opposition.
Blair did the same, but its a completely different kettle of fish when you get into number 10 & have to face up to the Whitehall Mr Bigs.
I simply love it when the discussion of Quangos comes up in the political classes from time to time. Now David Cameron is at it. I'd welcome it if he manages to achieve what he sets out. However, I cant help going back to Yes Minister, Series I, Episode 7: Jobs for the Boys.
Quite like the egregious Jim Hacker, Mr Cameron may soon realise that it takes "Two to Quango." Even before listening to his speech, I doubt if its going anywhere! If Cameron achieves something concrete in this respect I shall be happy to eat my words....make that really, really, really happy.
Guess who said that in 1996?
Same rhetoric, same topic, just different spin.
Also public sector workers don't get free pensions, they do contribute out of their own money, If you are talking about public sector workers ala town halls and local offices, i thionk you will find the vast majority are on well below national average earnings and the average "gold plated" pension pot that many mention...
You have met my suggestion that public-sector workers get the same terms and conditions w.r.t. pensions with a plea for better pensions for them ! Tough - there are plenty of private sector workers in a worse situation ! Welcome to the real world !
Cameron should make his first priority to set up a new non-governement body to review, monitor and limit the growth of Quangos.
He should bring in external consultants to provide an industry perspective and ensure that it's run by people he can trust - for example old friends from Eton and Oxford.
This could be the first in a whole range of new bodies to monitor public expenditure and reduce bureaucracy and cronyism.
I so agree with your comments but I do suspect that if they really look at the costs that could be saved its a no-brainer as we need savings, and big ones, soon.
More to the point the Tory brand still carries damage and something like this - improving transparency - will surely help that cause.
The Lib Dems are for it.
Therefore there would be a majority in favour whatever happened in this crazy first past the post system that permits Gordon to treat the UK as a fiefdom.
Where is McBride and what is his story worth to democracy and perhaps the Torygraph?
Can we nominate things to be pruned? Any group who has a webpage like this one: https://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/bre/code/page46954.html where they manage to produce a code of practice on guidance of regulation and then feel the need to produce a guide to the code of practice on guidance ought to be near the top of the...
As chancellor, Brown seemed to delight in lots of complicated little rules, often to try and avoid fraud. I wonder whether it would be possible to simplify a lot of petty financial rules and regulations and save far more than was ever extracted from the system by those attempting to defraud it. No doubt other sectors o...
I agree there are sub standard people in ALL sectors of the workforce and that includes the private sector.
"This gives Local Authorities the potential to set up numerous Quangos."
The issue seems to be that Local Authorities will choose representatives - presumably from amongst their Councillors - to represent their Council area on some Government-formed QUANGO whose remit crosses Council boundary areas. (Like the existing Thames Gateway programme).
That way of doing business, however good or bad, does already exist in various forms.
If it were within any one local Council's remit, it wouldn't need a QUANGO, as local Council's are a democratically elected body and could just collect tolls, or whatever, via their existing administration - much like they collect Council Tax, Rates, parking fines, etc., etc.
And local Councils are permitted to pool resources with other Councils - in fact, it already happens in a number of areas, especially procurement. Sometimes one Council will take a lead role on some aspect of a programme such as the administration or financial payments.
Of course, there are also some 'local authorities' that are not elected, e.g. Police Authorities, Royal Park Authorities, etc.
I think you are mistaking an honest comment about the average 'gold plated' pension with a plea for a better one. To add another stat the average non-public sector pension is currently around £6000 BUT it is dragged down by widows and orphans pensions whereas these are separated out from the public sector average. If t...
WE need to be clear there are QUANGOs and there are Non Departmental Public Bodies (NDPB), I used to be a civil servant now I work for a NDPB, which means we are funded wholly by public money but do not count as civil servants.
NDPBs perform functions that were previously done by civil servants directly employed by the Govt. and as such all these claims about abolishing etc are rhetoric ubless you do not want these functions to be carried out. The Private Sector certainly isn't going to deliver many of these functions.
There does need to be more public accountability of NDPBs, staff who work for these organisations are cnscious that it is public money we deal with and in my experience make decisions based on the need to be able to justify how money is spent and that we do make a real difference.
By the way i am luck that I have a final salary pension, which on current forecasts will be worth about £8k pa.
Essential this is about reforming governement expenditure and reducing waste and also bring some accountability back to voters. It might re-energise them.
followed by a root and branch reform of the Family Courts.
are not likey to go do that route then.
of 15Billions over a 5 year term.
Yes, IR35_Survivor, the Labour government is pretty much kept in place by the barrister vote. And that really is Jesus in your TV.
Nick you omitted to mention that Ofcom was itself a merger of five quangoes. At the time many staff from the Radiocommunications Agency were made redundant and that is the reason why Ofcom are now presiding over widespread pollution of the shortwave radio spectrum.
No doubt the politicians will use the trick of merging quangoes again this time, with similarly disastrous results.
I dont know, it all depends on how many Tories fancy a pop at being members of the Quangos if they fail to get anywhere at local or general election level.
Like the EU, Quangos are great places to park failed politicians,their wives, pets et al.
Not good enough for Westminster, then never mind we will find you something to keep you out of mischief & you can even pretend to be doing something important.
Just don't let the public know how much money its costing them.
I recommend reviewing 'Jobs for the Boys' a 'yes Minister' situation comedy from 1980.
So the government's initiative to reduce knife crime is strictly for the birds, empty rhetoric... as nobody in their right minds would propose the "mirror image' statement, an initiative to increase knife crime.
Saga, if this is Labour logic it's no wonder this country is heading down the Swanee! I'll forgive you as it's Monday and you clearly haven't engaged the old grey matter.
btw I think they should create a new quango to see if you can cross a quince with a mango.
In the 80's these Quangos were headed by wives of the Conservative majority - because they did a degree in a vaguely related subject at University - and the government appointed their representatives to these positions!
That was when I stopped voting for sleaze.
Labour have made them far more fit for purpose, and unless Cameron can say it will not be Conservative wives or Conservative cronies sitting on his neo Quangos then he will not be winning my vote.
It's not just quangos, it's the whole public sector that is bloated and needs some serious pruning. Look at the tax system for example. Didn't I read recently that the UK has the most complicated tax system in the whole world? This means that we need an army of bureaucrats just to keep the system going. The problem is ...
Now, if Dave really has the cojones to take on this system and start making some of the simplifications and cuts we so desperately need, then I will be impressed. But forgive me if I don't hold my breath. Talk is cheap.
Politicians create Quangos and staff them with political friends, relatives and anyone who can be trusted to advance the politicians own pet theories!
Politicians also create Quangos to retire to on big fat salaries when the voters kick them out!
Bit of a non-event, really. I can remember the Tories promising this sort of thing back in 1983. But they still managed to leave office with more Quangos than when they started. Cameron/Brown both need to remember this: if they burn the quangos, then they'll have to employ civil servants or local gov to do the work ins...
Twelve years ago Blair and Brown promised to dismantle all Quangos as they were "undemocratic, etc, etc". They didn't do it. Thanks to them we have more Quangos than ever. 70 at the last count! Now we have more of the same being promised ... no doubt more of the same will be done too ... i.e. nothing.
Get rid of them all and start again from scratch and review what is really necessary and how to make what they do efficient and cost effective.
There's never been a better time to show the taxpayer that cuts don't have to be made in front line services like the NHS and schools.
They can be made by stripping out all of the quangos that have been political areas for shoving 'friends' into highly lucritive jobs. The idea that they are at arms length to any government is ludicrous.
It is something that should have been done long ago even before a recession but who wanted to upset influential allies? Now there is no choice and Cameron knows it. This is a good start which could save billions of pounds.
The Tories always wind me up when they bang on about cuts in public sector spending. They talk about it as if the "public sector" is some inanimate object rather than an organisation made up of human beings and that "public sector cuts" put the jobs and livelihood of civil servants on the line.
I don't work for the public sector: I work for a private company but the private company I work for has contracts with public sector bodies - including quangos. When I hear "public sector cuts" I know that my job is also on the line.
I've already been through one round of redundancy as a result of the credit crunch. Cuts in public sector spending will almost certainly put me and my colleagues through another one.
And this leave me thinking "could someone please explain to me how exactly this will get us out of a recession?" From where I'm sitting "public sector cuts" can only harm not help the economy.
A phrase coined by none other than Gordon Brown in 1995, not David Cameron. Cameron has said he "will not" engage in a bonfire of the Quangos.
Make a sentence out of the following words: Youself, shoot, the, foot, in.
One North East and Business Links. Staffed by overpaid civil servants seconded from departments that had no idea about business. The old DTI brigade.
They took over a thriving cheap to run help for new enterprises scheme and have turned into a wasteful monster throwing away billions of pounds of European funding on silly training schemes no one wanted or really needed.
It made big profits for private training organisations but the effect on SME's was and still is minimal. Numbers 1 and 2 on my list of what should go.
Of course no Labour politician' relatives or monied labour supporters have any relatives in Quangos? They are stuffed with them. Along with a fair sprinkling in the BBC.
Those that can't get a position in his/her local quango is employed as a researcher. Get real, they are all at it.
Lets face it, trimming the public sector down and reducing the massive pension bill is impossible.
Welcome to the real word buddy. Private sector jobs are being lost by the thousand, I have just had to go to Italy to close out our office their, a genuinely heartbreaking experience, and companies are going bust left right and center.
It is astonishing that you think you should be immune from the hardships that are affecting the country, and that you think a failing private sector should continue to prop you up.
You need to apply that rule to all political announcements / comments not policies. A policy to do a particular task may be laudable and should set out in detail how it will be achieved. What we have here again is an announcement that states "we want to something good" and it is a waste of space. This is not a policy f...
Cuts have been going on in the public sector for a few years now, you just don't seem to hear about it or rather it being reported.
Apparently he plans to close the schools' Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA), which develops the national curriculum. Does this mean putting the school curriculum in the hands of politicians?
I know precious little about the education system, but I assume (perhaps naively?) the members of QCDA are selected for their professional expertise. Can it really be a good idea to take control of the curriculum from educational specialists and give it to politically motivated novices?
Or have I got this all wrong and it is simply a meaningless announcement that will in reality be about a bit of renaming for appearances sake?
If that comment came accross as bile against public sector workers, I apologise, it was meant to be no such thing.
But I do get irritated by the attitude some (not all) have that they believe their jobs should be sacronosant, even if there is no money to pay for them. I can attest that there is no such luxury in the private sector, my company is now down to the bare bones, there is simply no more cost to cut, and we are scraping al...
You can't surely be defending the management of the curriculum over the past few years?
It is widely acknowledged that the exams system is now one enormous failure, with University's, even the ones who take on the brightest of candidates, complaining of the low knowledge levels of the students.
Thank you for drawing my attention to this anomoly in the Brown words/actions continuum. I do not believe that he has much credibility left.
Csmeron is approaching this intelligently.
You clearly misunderstood my post. I DO live in the real world, I work in the private sector and I've even been through one round of redundancy. Yes I know that people are losing their jobs left, right and centre: I was very nearly one of them!!!
Public sector cuts will harm the private sector company I work for. It will reduce revenue to this private sector company and will result in job losses in this private sector company.
This doesn't sound to me like a very sensible way to get us out of recession, does it?

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