Report: George Osborne’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’ has ‘failed to spark’
George Osborne’s so-called “bonfire of the quangos” in 2010 has been a failure as spending by these government bodies has almost tripled, according to a new parliamentary report.
A new report from Westminster’s Public Accounts Committee today claims Osborne’s reforms “failed to spark” and that the Cabinet Office has “not been enforcing the code for public appointments”.
Osborne set out to cut public spending and reduce the deficit when he was chancellor in 2010 by abolishing and merging a large number of quangos.
Some quangos are very large organisations, like the NHS and Ofsted, while others are much smaller bodies, like the the Boundary Commission for England.
In 2010 the UK’s approximately 600 quangos, officially known as Arm’s Length Bodies, accounted for £90bn of government spending, according to the Taxpayers’ Alliance.
There are now 295 Arm’s Length Bodies in the UK, however their spending has skyrocketed to £265bn, according to the committee’s report.
The Institute for Government noted that these kind of figures of difficult to verify and aren’t “always directly comparable over time”.
Public Accounts Committee chair and Labour MP Meg Hillier said: “The famous ‘bonfire of the quangos’ of a decade ago notably failed to spark and in fact we’ve seen government wave through half-baked business cases for arms-length bodies too often since.
“The public appointments to lead these bodies lack transparency and accountability to an extent that poses a real risk to the reputation of the organisation and so to how government delivers objectives using them.”
There have historically been claims that quango directors are appointed without due process and are an example of “jobs for the boys”.
The committee said this had not been addressed over the past decade and that the appointments process needed to be reformed.
“Government must begin to properly account for the vast £265bn of taxpayers’ money a year spent by Arm’s Length Bodies, starting at the point of why they’re set up in the first place, and demonstrate who is genuinely the best person to lead and deliver through an open, fair and transparent public appointments process,” Hillier said.
Matthew Gill, senior fellow at the Institute for Government think tank, said the “current [appointments] system is strained”.
“The pandemic has delayed many appointments, with many roles filled on a temporary basis and the process for some appointments rerun,” he said.
“Both the current commissioner for public appointments, Peter Riddell, and the Committee on Standards in Public Life have expressed concern that the balance between ministerial patronage and appointment by merit is under threat.”