Cutting the Quangos
Leaks that these peculiar public bodies are being lined up for the chop is very good news. However it is not just a matter of reducing and amalgamating. This whole structure provides very bad and expensive government and is fundamentally undemocratic.
Whenever interviewed, the head boy or girl of each puts up a cogent argument as to why, in their precious quango’s case, an exception should be made, how they do much valuable work and how the needy depend upon them and their wisdoms. Sorry no sale. This argument is invalid, because the whole concept is flawed.
Democratic government must be by elected government, assisted by an appropriate department of the civil service and must be responsible to the electorate for every outcome of public administration and management at national or local levels, where and only where the government has an appropriate function to perform. What has happened is that numerous quangos have been created either to carry out functions which under a proper constitution should be the responsibility of the electorally accountable, or which are meddling activities which are nothing whatever to do with government and neither it nor its agencies should be anywhere near.
It is this fashion for non-government agencies, regulators and authorities which has created a crippling burden upon the economy, not only in terms of actual cost, but in terms of gigantic hidden costs of putting a millstone round the neck of almost every function and activity of everyday commercial, business, academic and private life. Getting rid of the whole apparatus, hook line and sinker, would save money yes, but more to the point, it would set the economy free.
Then we would see the recovery really get up steam.
I kick myself in the but every-time I see sites as good as this because I should stop bludging and start working on mine 😉
Hiya, Are you going to be publishing a follow up page? The hubby and me have spent some time browsing over your web site and interestingly you touched on a little something i was talking over only the other month with our son’s football coach. We quite often find ourselves quarrelling over the littlest of issues, isn’t it silly?