I wrote over the weekend about the cost of quangos. In that blog, I promised we would be campaigning for some of the bodies currently under review to be abolished in the run up to the Spending Review.
Today we're releasing the first of a series of letters calling for the worst wastes of money in the quango sector to be abolished. In 2009/10 the Carbon Trust received nearly £118 million from the Department for Energy and Climate Change in its core grant. Add in grants from other Government Departments and you get to a massive £156 million.
That money means handsome remuneration for staff. It even means plans to expand into other countries, last year they advertised for a Head of Carbon Trust USA. We would probably have more examples of waste but for the fact the Carbon Trust isn't covered by the Freedom of Information Act so we can't find out how they spend our money.
The Carbon Trust doesn't do much to achieve any concrete objective. It doesn't address a real market failure, if large businesses (the ones the Carbon Trust works with) are able to save money by cutting their energy use then they will. If they need advice, they can pay for it instead of the money coming out of the pockets of ordinary families.
There is more in the letter we have released this morning.
We'll be sending it to Chris Huhne. And we are encouraging our supporters to contact him as well, urging him to scrap this huge waste of money.
Please do the same by e-mailing [email protected] or writing to him at:
Chris Huhne
Department of Energy and Climate Change
3 Whitehall Place
London
SW1A 2AW
Hopefully the Treasury and some of those sitting in the Star Chamber will listen too.
