Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, July 10, 2009

Quango squabble

Quangos were one of my students' favorite topics because the acronym sounded as strange as the actual name for those organizations.

Well, quangos are in the news again.

Tories pledge to cut back quangos
David Cameron is to pledge to cut the number of unelected quangos to save money and increase accountability...

Mr Cameron will call for a cut in the 790 organisations, which cost £35bn a year, in a speech to the Reform think tank...

He will say: "Too many state actions, services and decisions are carried out by people who cannot be voted out by the public, by organisations that feel no pressure to answer for what happens, in a way that is completely unaccountable.

"The growth of the quango state is, I believe, one of the main reasons people feel that nothing ever changes, nothing will ever get done and that the state just passes the buck and sends them from pillar to post instead of sorting out problems." ...


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1 Comments:

At 8:36 AM, Blogger Ken Wedding said...

MPs condemn coalition's bonfire of the quangos as botched

"The government has "botched" its flagship plans to scrap 192 quangos, according to a scathing report by a respected parliamentary committee.

"In the most damning formal assessment of the government's performance to date, the Commons public administration select committee says the coalition has "poorly managed" its so-called bonfire of the quangos, and failed to achieve its two main aims – to improve accountability and reduce spending, meaning the reorganisation could now cost more than it will save…

Labour called for the overhaul of Britain's quangos – expected to lead to thousands of job losses – to be put on hold while a thorough review is carried out.

Jon Trickett, shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, said: "This proves the chaos theory of government. They are producing an irrational, unaccountable and expensive mish-mash of proposals, which will do nothing to improve the quality of services to the British public."...

 

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