Thursday 14 October 2010

Quango cull affects health and environment most

No surprise, but Conservative voices in the coalition government (UK) have no doubt influenced choice of quangos (QUasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations) to have their funding cut.
The figure shows in grey the current proportion of quangos linked to each government department (so for example Dept for International Development and Government Equalities Office only had 2 quangos to these will be relatively unimportant in this analysis).

Departments which have seen the greatest loss of quangos (red bars) include health, communities and local government, environment farming and rural affairs, transport and education.

Departments which have seen the most quangos retained include defence, home office and justice.

It is noticeable that departments with the greatest amount of dithering (green - 'under consideration') are education and foreign and commonwealth office. Education may be particularly sensitive after previous cuts and reinstatements...

Is there a pattern here? Is this evidence of a move towards a 'secure' state and away from egalitarianism?

Good news is that Department for Energy and Climate Change and Department for Culture Media and Sport have survived relatively well.

2 comments:

  1. BBC article:
    'A cross-party Commons committee carried out a review of the government's cull of quangos and concluded the whole process was "botched".'

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12132341

    This was chaired by conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, who said that opportunities for 'Big society' had been missed...

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  2. Also in the Guardian: cull could cost more than it saves!
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/07/mps-committee-bonfire-quangos-botched

    ReplyDelete