To Quangos, with Love!

UK governments seem to LOVE Quangos…. Or Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations These are ‘arms length’ public bodies, funded by public money which do everything from regulate industries to advise the government on emergencies.

They are BIG BUSINESS, and are responsible for spending £223.9BN a year, more than a fifth of the national budget.

Some of the best known Quangos, although you may not know they are technically Quangos, are OFWAT, The British Council, The Nuclear Decommissioning Body, and even the Bank of England!

NB some of the heads of these bodies, and also many of the accounting officers, are VERY well paid, earning generous SIX FIGURE SALARIES. The guy who heads the decommissioning body earns almost half a million a year, for example, many Quango officials earn more than the PM.

The latest Labour government are HUGE FANS of them. In only one month in office they have created a raft of new arms length bodies:

• Skills England
• Great British Energy
• Various ‘Mission Delivery Boards’
• An office for value for money

Further ones are planned

Why the love for Quangos..?

At least in their early days, ministers can fill them with like-minded souls. These people may not be officially on the government’s side, but they can generally be expected to tow the governmental line.

It also allows the government to pass blame down when things go wrong: blame the Quango, not the actual government.

The downsides…

This Civitas Report demonstrates the THE SHHER EXPENSE of Quangos. I mean when you hear the criticism of bloated government - Quangos seem to fit this description perfectly, some of those salaries!

And they don’t seem to be very accountable, with some of them it’s difficult to see what they actually do, record keeping can be opaque in some cases.

There are also some spectacular failures. Most notably SAGE (The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) during the Pandemic.

This was chock full of scientists who aired on the worse case scenario side of things when it came to predicting Covid deaths. One of the main guys had a track record of mis-predicting the impact of previous pandemics by several orders of magnitude, but here he was getting paid a fortune to do the same.

Looking back Rishi Sunak has described how one member of SAGE would sit in on Pandemic meetings and summarise risk for him at the end, never taking into account the social and economic costs of Lockdowns.

It wasn’t until Lockdown 4 was being proposed that the government started to look elsewhere for advice, until that point this Quango had them by the balls,
I guess that’s the problem - you set up a SAGE and then you kind of have to listen to them to maintain credibility, but this because a beast that, in an actual emergency, where time is critical, it was impossible to go against it.

Quangos - final thoughts

Terrible idea... They seem like an easy option for governments which cost a fortune and can do enormous harm, and no obvious good for society.

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UK governments seem to LOVE Quangos…. Or Quasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations These are ‘arms length’ public bodies, funded by public money which do everything from regulate industries to advise the government on emergencies.

They are BIG BUSINESS, and are responsible for spending £223.9BN a year, more than a fifth of the national budget.

Some of the best known Quangos, although you may not know they are technically Quangos, are OFWAT, The British Council, The Nuclear Decommissioning Body, and even the Bank of England!

NB some of the heads of these bodies, and also many of the accounting officers, are VERY well paid, earning generous SIX FIGURE SALARIES. The guy who heads the decommissioning body earns almost half a million a year, for example, many Quango officials earn more than the PM.

Screenshot 2024-08-22 at 09.08.28.png
The latest Labour government are HUGE FANS of them. In only one month in office they have created a raft of new arms length bodies:

Skills England
Great British Energy
Various ‘Mission Delivery Boards’
An office for value for money
Further ones are planned

Why the love for Quangos..?
At least in their early days, ministers can fill them with like-minded souls. These people may not be officially on the government’s side, but they can generally be expected to tow the governmental line.

It also allows the government to pass blame down when things go wrong: blame the Quango, not the actual government.

The downsides…
This Civitas Report demonstrates the THE SHHER EXPENSE of Quangos. I mean when you hear the criticism of bloated government - Quangos seem to fit this description perfectly, some of those salaries!

And they don’t seem to be very accountable, with some of them it’s difficult to see what they actually do, record keeping can be opaque in some cases.

There are also some spectacular failures. Most notably SAGE (The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) during the Pandemic.

This was chock full of scientists who aired on the worse case scenario side of things when it came to predicting Covid deaths. One of the main guys had a track record of mis-predicting the impact of previous pandemics by several orders of magnitude, but here he was getting paid a fortune to do the same.

Looking back Rishi Sunak has described how one member of SAGE would sit in on Pandemic meetings and summarise risk for him at the end, never taking into account the social and economic costs of Lockdowns.

Screenshot 2024-08-22 at 09.13.36.png
It wasn’t until Lockdown 4 was being proposed that the government started to look elsewhere for advice, until that point this Quango had them by the balls,
I guess that’s the problem - you set up a SAGE and then you kind of have to listen to them to maintain credibility, but this because a beast that, in an actual emergency, where time is critical, it was impossible to go against it.

Quangos - final thoughts
Terrible idea... They seem like an easy option for governments which cost a fortune and can do enormous harm, and no obvious good for society.

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