Douglas Carswell MP: There's only one way to cut quangos and red tape

There's only one way to cut quangos and red tape

"Cut red tape!" goes the cry. "Bonfire of the quangos" runs the cliché.

Find me a politician that has not talked about both. Yet when the shooting starts, find me a politician who hasn't reflexively looked to set up a new quango to shield them from blame. Thus, for all the talk, does more power end up with unaccountable officialdom.

In this age of anti-politics, an increasingly cynical electorate needs to be told not merely what a politician seeks to achieve. They need to be given some indication that the politician does actually know how it might be done. It's true that mega detailed policy wonkery alone is not going to swing the polls. But against a zeitgeit of anti-politics, politicians who can't convey that sense of how have a credibility issue.

Thus when pushed over how to deregulate, many politicians trot out something about "sun set clauses" and "regulatory impact assessment". Blah blah.

Let's be frank. They've not really delivered less quangos or fewer rules, have they?

A radically different approach is required; make the regulator accountable.

If every quango chief had to have their budget annually approved by the relevant Commons select committee on a no-approval-no-money basis, we might start seeing quangos made accountable for the rules they impose on the rest of us. We might, at last, be able to show how the quango State routinely wields a regulatory sledge-hammer to miss a nut. We might even see the plug pulled entirely from some quangos, and see that the sky doesn't actually fall in.

It might also give Parliament more purpose.

Posted on 5 July 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

Well, ideally the government would just stop handing money out, period. There is no justification for quangos. If the State can't do it directly, a quango can't do it either. They avoid none of the pitfalls of government governance; they are parasitic, wasteful, bureaucratic and a target for nutters with an agenda to impose. But they have the greater failing than government in that they are unaccountable and the people cannot get rid of them directly.

But then, they are merely one symptom of the corporatist state we live in. The old days of the Unions having beer and sanwdiches at Number 10 now seem quaintly restrained compared to the sheer heaving mass of special interests exerting power over government- which has been perhaps the defining political narrative of the post-1960s. Government needs rid of quangos, but it needs ridding of Green organisations, the immense medical/temperance lobby, Citizens For This and Mothers Against That, also.

Posted on 5 July 2009 16:04 by Ian B

It's designed to increase state control - 'socialist totalitarianism' - as opposed to democracy and democratic representation via MPs.

Objectors in any given sector are 'gagged' with 'red tape'.

Posted on 5 July 2009 20:42 by Jean Baker

Your proposal might be sufficient when the array of quangos has been trimmed - currently they are far to numerous and nebulous for there to be sufficient time for select committees to authorise their continued existence.

I think I'd start be requiring a quango website to be set up that lists every quango perhaps under its main funding department. The listing should provide a link to a concise statement of the activities and alleged raison d'etre of the quango, and to its financial details of funding (some now sell things in addition to government direct fundig, like the ACPO selling private information for e.g. CRB checks) and expenditure, both on its own staff, and also money spent on procuring goods and services on behalf of government.

Citizens can help evaluate them and vote them down with some direct democracy via the power of the web. Any quango failing to list would automatically lose its budget.

Posted on 6 July 2009 00:35 by It doesn't add up...

And don't leave out the fake charities.

http://fakecharities.org/

Posted on 6 July 2009 09:59 by John Page

I have more respect than you for sunset clauses which in theory & sometimes in practice stop bureacracy going on forever.

owever I believe the only way to cut government is to cut the money spent on it. We should have a freeze on public employees recruitment (perhaps excluding front line medical staff) which, with retirals, would cut the civil service by about 5% a year. We should also have a constitutional limit to what proportion of GNP government can spend whcih can only be changed by referendum (I have reason to believe popular opinion would say about 20%). This would not mean that spending would have to be instantly cut to this but that, as long as spending was above that no Ministry would get any budget increase. I think public opinuion would be tougher & less open to deals than Parliamentary committees.

Posted on 6 July 2009 11:04 by Neil Craig

Good points. Who believes that anyone will abolish quangos?

Why not allow voters to nominate quangos for abolition, or indeed for support? That way the most obnoxious ones will keep coming up. It could be done on the number 10 website.

We also need a means for voters to raise questions about some of the less headline quangos, such as the one that runs the British Library and has kept its collection offline ever since the internet started up.

In short... accountability is indeed the issue. The way to avoid the quangos supervising quangos problem is to involve the electorate.

Posted on 6 July 2009 11:30 by Roger Pearse

One of the main problems of Quangos and the so-called Government Agencies is the total lack of accountability. They enable Ministers to deny responsibility if something goes wrong - The DVLA and Environment Agency are typical examples. Jobs which need to be done by government must be brought back into the Civil Service where, in theory at least, the Minister is accountable. Moving work to these "Agencies" merely makes it appear as if the number of Civil Servants is decreasing (or not increasing) and enables the salaries paid to their unaccountable chiefs to be way above what they would get in the private sector.

Posted on 6 July 2009 14:58 by Brian E.

Two further points:

Morus at politicalbetting.com suggests that quangos should have an elected element so that policy reflected public opinion. I think he must have read The Plan. It's an extension of the idea of public audit.

I recently commented on a consultation by the Dept of Transport on road safety: among the questions was this gem -

10. Do you agree that the Road Safety Delivery Board should be tasked with holding Government and other stakeholders to account on the implementation of a new national road safety plan? (Chapter 8)

My reply:

No. This is a job for Parliament. The minister should not hide behind a QUANGO.

I hope Theresa Villiers has taken note - I copied her in on it.

Posted on 7 July 2009 10:09 by It doesn't add up...

I've just been reading a blog elsewhere, and it seems that during the past year David Cameron has proposed 17 new Quangos. "Mark Reckons" lists them as follows:
1. Office of Tax Simplification
2. Office of Budget Responsibility
3. Free national financial advice service
4. 'Sports Commission' (Australian model)
5. Office for Civil Society
6. Social Investment Bank
7. Skills advisory service for service personnel
8. Service for families of departing armed forces personnel
9. Military inquest family advisory service
10. International Aid Watchdog
11. Innovative Projects Agency
12. National Foundation for STEM
13. HealthWatch
14. Defence Export Services Organisation
15. All Age Careers Service
16. Voluntary Action Lottery Fund
17. A 'development agency for libraries'
So just as Gordon provides us with negative increases in public spending, David will be providing negative decreases in Quangos!