Culture secretary adds fuel to quango bonfire
Updated on 28 July 2010
Spending cuts look likely to claim the organisation which helped fund Oscar winning Gosford Park and other hit films, but a government expert tells Channel 4 News that a "bonfire of the quangos" may not save any cash.
The UK Film Council (UKFC) has funded more than 900 films during its ten years of existence. But yesterday the agency became the latest victim of the government’s cutting programme.
Despite claiming to generate £5 for every £1 it invests, the UKFC will be abolished and the role of distributing government and lottery support for film makers will transfer to another body. The details of this change will be finalised over the summer along with the arrangements relating to the other sports and cultural bodies that are set to disappear.
It follows a bad few days for government bodies with announcements yesterday on policing reforms including the axe of two so-called quangos. But the cull doesn’t stop there. A quick trawl of government departmental websites reveals that there are at least 20 quangos already set for the chop as part of the government’s cost cutting exercise, with more to be announced over the summer.
A Public Bodies (Reform) Bill will be introduced in the next year to reduce the cost of bureaucracy and the number of public bodies. The Cabinet Office expects year on year savings of £1bn through this programme.
The Bill will give ministers new powers to abolish, merge or transfer functions from public bodies back to departments. It will also require all public bodies to be reviewed every three years, rather than the current practice of every five years.
The Cabinet Offices says that in March 2009, there were 766 non-departmental public bodies. Together, they spend more than £46bn a year and employ more than 110,000 people.
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “Many of these bodies were set up a considerable length of time ago, and times and demands have changed. In the light of the current financial situation, and as part of our drive to increase openness and efficiency across Whitehall, it is the right time to look again at the role, size and scope of these organisations.”
Quangos set for the chop
UK Film Council
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
Infrastructure Planning Commission
Regional Development Agencies
Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency
General Teaching Council
Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
Agricultural Wages Board
Agricultural Dwelling House Advisory Committees
Inland Waterways Advisory Council
Commission for Rural Communities
Alcohol Education and Research Council
Appointments Commission
Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence
Health Protection Agency
National Patient Safety Agency
National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse
NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA)
Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)
The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property policy
SITPRO (Simplifying International Trade)
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Advisory Body
The British Shipbuilders' Corporation
But it’s not all as straightforward as scrapping quangos. Some bodies will merge including UK Sport with Sport England and the Animal Health Agency with the Veterinary Laboratories Agency. Others, including a number of health quangos, will lose their public funding. Some bodies that fall into this category, including British Waterways will move to not for profit model, while others will be required to raise money through charging.
But Peter Walsh, chief executive of Action Against Medical Accidents, warns that the attention that dedicated bodies bring to an issue could be watered down if they are merged into a bigger quango or department.
He is particularly concerned about the National Patient Safety Agency’s fate and calls on the government to make patient safety top priority as it seeks to redeploy the agency’s services. “If a function is valued, the department sponsoring the move must demonstrate how exactly it is going to be prioritised in the new arrangements.”
Sir Ian Magee, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government says that the Public Bodies (Reform) Bill would have to be very wide ranging to abolish quangos with statutory purposes. He cites the difficulties that the previous government had in absorbing the functions of the Legal Services Commission into the Ministry of Justice.
He adds that even a spectacular cull of quangos might not achieve the savings that the government has hoped for. One reason for this is that 80 per cent of their expenditure comes from just 15 quangos. “Theoretically you could get rid of hundreds of Non Departmental Public Bodies and you wouldn’t save a lot.
Some big spending quangos are primed for the chop, including the NPIA. But many of these bodies’ functions will simply be transferred to government departments and other public bodies, which would mean that few savings are actually achieved.
We are also likely to come across a handful of new bodies including the National Crime Agency and the Public Health Service, which will absorb the General Social Care Council and the Health Professions Council. Sir Ian Magee points out that history has shown how governments of all colours create as many quangos as they dismantle.
“Margaret Thatcher threatened a bonfire of the quangos,” he notes. “But by the time that Conservative government had its 18 years in office, it created as many as it abolished. Tony Blair said a similar thing and created a fair few as well.”
