[Closed] bye bye useless QUANGO's

Seriously though.
Has anyone on here had dealings with any of the abolished quangos and can say that their loss will be a strong detriment to the country?

There is one quango that relates directly to my profession, I have never heard of it!

Thank god Cycling England is going and British Cycling will be decimated as of September 2012.

have a look at teh list.

English cycling? BBc , British nuclear fuels, general teaching council? independent living fund, british waterways

These roles need to be done by someone. Its just headline grabbing stupidity. All that will happen is they will waste a shed load of money reorganising things and amalgamating things and then claim to have got rid of the quangos without actually saving money

BBC World Service. Noone uses that!

Looking at the list there seems to be quite a few that seem important - if the quango isn't doing it then it's likely somebody else will have to.

BBC World Service. Noone uses that!

Keeps me going through occasional insomnia and 24 hour solo races 🙂

TJ you mean someone will have to actually do some real work for their wage in the council?

My sister in law still has another external consultant also doing her job, she tells him what the answers should be then he advises the council this as his recommendations.

Under review, not going to go. For example, I can't see anyone getting rid of the Audit Commission and getting away with it.

The village idiots are up in Manchester. Maybe we could save some money letting them go as well.

If we get rid of all these panels of medical/scientific experts in areas such as nuclear, radiation, air quality, pollution and devices such as:-

Committee on Carcogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment

Committee on Medical Aspects of Air Pollutants

Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment

Committee on Mutagenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment

Committee on the Safety of Devices

Who is going to advise the government in these areas?

No-one?

Another group of scientists?

Leave it to the market to decide what is tolerable?

Public opinion?

Tron - thats the point - its a window dressing exercise.

No money will be saved -in fact Ibet the costs are inreased.

Most will remain unaltered, some will be merged. Expensive consultants will be employed to do this and the costs of the mergers will wipe out decades of savings. This is what has happened every previous time this has been tried.

As an employee of a useless QUANGO that is being abolished, I hope those of you that think we do not provide any useful service can find your own specialist advice should you need it.. Dangerousbeans is right, all those committees provide world-renowned scientific opinion/ evidence that serves us all. Will be a sad loss when they go.

What the **** is a quango anyway? Possibly the most annoying word ever.

I thought it stood for quasi non governmental organisation. Am I right?

EDIT: yes.

What the **** is a quango anyway?

It's a type of marsupial related to the wallaby.

I have dealings with a couple on the list and the ones I deal with are under review (not headline grabbing being abolished now). The reviews aren't going to be concluded until 2013. Don't hold your breathe for sweeping abolishion.

I think it's not going to save much money at all. It's probably better to regulate them more tightly - some of the bigger Quangos have doubled there staff in the last 5 years. Thats the biggest cost.

Also unfortunately for a proportion the jobs they do are required - sometimes by law eg. HEFA and the work they do will be just moved to another organisation. No cost saving.

I can't see this saving much money (especially after the government has to pay peoples redundancy).

[b]Qu[/b]asi [b]A[/b]utonomous [b]N[/b]on [b]G[/b]overnmental [b]O[/b]rganisation IIRC

What TJ said. Headline grabbing "we'll get rid of these un-elected bodies". Quangos increased under the Tory Governments of the 80's/90's because something had to do the work of the departments they had abolished.

JonT - Member
BBC World Service. Noone uses that!

Yes they do, you can't beat listening to The Archers when you've been camped out in Belize for 3 weeeks, and all you want is your own bed, and some home comforts..

Feeling a bit daft yet OP?

Wot TJ said.

IIRC they were originally touted as "jobs for the boys" but many actually perform necessary & useful functions and aren't as governing party-skewed as they once were (and in fact some autonomy is not a bad thing).

I wonder how many jobs that 177 equates to.

What TJ said, plus, I think there's scope for another one advising on the correct use of apostrophes in relation to the titles of threads on Internet forums. ARTTIF?

jon1973 - Member
'What the **** is a quango anyway?'
It's a type of marsupial related to the wallaby.

A bunch of Wallies?

Deal with quite a few of those through work, Audit Commission, IPC, HPA etc. Like most stuff some are more useful/ valuable to society than others... but what TJ said - lots of time and money spent reorganising, reshuffling, rebranding etc etc... business as usual for government then. 🙄

ps at the risk of yanking out the STW pedant in me there's no apostrophe in QUANGOs ..... it's plural ... and breathe 😉

Anyone know why British Waterways is for the chop, but the Broads Authority is on the untouchable list?

I'm really fed up of the constant slating of public bodies coming from this government. Still no mention of tackling tax evasion I notice.

Veterinary Residues Committee

good riddance, they talked nothing but **** anyway

IIRC Broads Authority is a national park and has statutory planning duties like the other national parks. So not a QUANGO. British Waterways seems an odd one to be on the list though.

Still no mention of tackling tax evasion I notice.

No ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11359306

Good, finally. Think the lib dems have realised how badly they were coming across.

Notice the FC is in the under review section btw.

From that BBC link:

"...He also urged public sector workers not to strike over planned cuts..."

Good luck with that one!

Unveiling plans agreed with the Chancellor George Osborne, Mr Alexander said the authorities would get £900m extra in financial support for the "ruthless" pursuit of tax evaders and those who use legal loopholes to minimise their tax bills.

In fact he has a problem right there - the fact the loopholes are legal...

None of our clients are on the list for the chop - PHEW!

BBC World Service. Noone uses that!

I guess I should have added a 😉

I was being sarcastic (I thought it would be obvious!) 🙂

Well, if it means that a few thousand Guardian readers are going to have to switch to Tesco Value gnocchi then it's alright by me.

😉

Tax evasion as noted by allthepies has recently been addressed, tax avoidance measures were announced at the time of the Budget (see paras 2.110 to 2.116 of the [url= http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/junebudget_complete.pdf ]Red Book[/url]), they just did not get a lot of publicity.

As far as QUANGOs are concerned, the aim of the review is to see if there was anything gained by them being independent from government or whether they were providing a technical role that cannot be better carried out by government. If not, then they activities will be rolled into government departments. Whilst this will not necessarily save money in respect of staff providing front line service, where it can save money is in the "head office function" (i.e. finance, HR, PR etc). Merging QUANGOs will have similar effects and simplifying the distribution of sports funding must be a good thing. Much of what UK sport does is allocate its income to other public bodies - why do we need this extra step?

mefty - don't come here with your reasoned thought and agreement, you can't possibly fit in here! 😀

Interesting mefty - I assumed when I hadn't heard anything about it, and when I wrote to my local Tory MP about it and he ignored the letter, that they weren't doing anything. That's encouraging, thanks.

So when the government are considering proposals for, say, air pollutants produced by industry, they will rely not on independent scientific advice but that provided in house?

And this will not be affected in any way by industry lobbyists?

Thinking Turner and Newall scenarios where industry controlled MP's put aside public good for industry good.

I personally think that independent advisors would be preferable in situations such as this.

Obviously I could be wrong but I get more cynical as I get older.

As mefty said nothing much will change a lot of the expertise will be brought in-house to a government department. I wonder what effect that will have on the labour related overheads.

IanMunro - Member

Anyone know why British Waterways is for the chop, but the Broads Authority is on the untouchable list?

Canals mainly in Labour areas, Broads a tory area?

mefty - Member

As far as QUANGOs are concerned, the aim of the review is to see if there was anything gained by them being independent from government or whether they were providing a technical role that cannot be better carried out by government. If not, then they activities will be rolled into government departments.

What? Many of them were created by the previous tory government because they would be more efficient outside of the Government.

I never thought I would hear mefty extol Public Sector as a beacon of cheapness and efficiency

The plan for us dangerousbeans is to be moved wholesale into the department of health, read into that what you will about independance.

Least it will be easier for them to shelve your findings if they don't agree with policy.