The bureaucratisation of Britain has been fronted by the 60,000 people appointed to Britain’s 529 quangos.
Sir Simon Jenkins, former Editor of The Times, has long complained about the centralisation of the British state. With 22,000 elected local councillors, Sir Simon notes: that Britain has the fewest number of elected representatives of any Western democracy. Instead, the fat British state has a ‘quangocracy’ where 60,000 people are appointed to 529 overlapping and unaccountable bodies. A Centre for Policy Studies study found that New Labour had created 111 new QUAsi Non-Governmental Organisations since its 1997 election.
As with anything connected with the civil service bureaucracy, once a quango has been created it is very difficult to shut down. Dan Lewis, author of the CPS study, recommends a ‘sunset clause’ for every quango. He proposes that giving quangos a five-year statutory lifespan will focus minds on achieving outcomes. ‘Sunset clauses’ will shift the balance of proof from those wanting to cull the quangocracy to those wanting to save organisations like the British Potato Council and the Government Hospitality Advisory Committee for the Purchase of Wine.
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