England: Ruled By Quango?

January 29, 2025

A Critical Feature

Quangos, ( or arm’s-length bodies (ALBs) as they are properly known), are a critical feature of the UK’s public sector. There are approximately 600 Quangos (ALBs) in the UK, some of which receive government funding amounting to tens of billions of pounds each year. They perform a range of functions: regulating markets and protecting consumers (e.g. Ofgem); investigating complaints on behalf of the public (e.g. the Local Government Ombudsman); inspecting key services (e.g. Ofsted); and offering expert advice to government (e.g. the Low Pay Commission). Some quangos, such as the Arts Council, take major cultural funding decisions while others, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, are cultural attractions in their own right. Quangos are seen to be an essential tool for delivering ministerial goals. They provide the means to carry out government activity in areas where its is believed that direct ministerial control is undesirable.(We wouldn’t want career politicians to get too involved in the small stuff)

Ineffective Use

Government use of quangos is not always very effective. Quangos are assigned to Government departments to ‘oversee, though it’s not always clear as an incoming minister what his/her responsibilities are and what they do and make sure that the quango remains focused on their priorities. Failure to do this can sap government time and lead to undesired outcomes that can crash careers. A good example of the problems in managing quangos is the flooding of the Somerset Levels in 2014 and the political fallout that ensued.

The idea that quangos are unaccountable pits of public money is a popular political refrain, particularly at election time. Parties regularly promise ‘culls’ of quangos to bring ‘quangoland’ under control. However, quangos occupy an odd place in political consciousness. While incoming governments often seek to abolish quangos, especially those they see as being too close to particular policies, new quangos are simultaneously proposed as the solution to a variety of problems. In 2010, for example, the Coalition immediately created the Office for Budget Responsibility to increase government’s fiscal credibility.

King’s Speech Clarifies Democratic Dilution

The recent King’s Speech was fairly unsurprising in many ways. Yimby’s(Yes In My Back Yard) praised the reform to planning regulations, liberals decried the smoking ban, and many despaired over the increased taxes and regulation on working people.

However, if you care about democracy, there’s one aspect of Labour’s agenda that should particularly concern you: the Government’s plans to establish new groups for employment, energy, and transport. These include Skills England, Great British Energy, andGreat British Rail, along with a strengthened Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which the new Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is relying on to prove her fiscal prudence. Since then, they’ve also added a new Office for Value for Money.

But what are Great British Energy, Skills England, and Great British Rail? Simply put, they’re quangos – quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (ALB). Operating at ‘arm’s length’ from the government, quangos have become deeply interwoven with our political process. Impossible to ignore and lacking democratic accountability, they perpetually seek more influence, with politicians often granting it to them.

Labour’s barrage of announcements since taking office might give the impression that they are keen to govern and put their new found power to use. Yet they betrayed their true attitude when they announced that a ‘black hole’ had been left in the finances caused partly by the failure to budget for the independent pay review bodies’ (another ALB) recommendations for public sector pay. Rather than examine the productivity of the public sector; Labour simply met their demands.

Stakeholderism

This and the litany of new quangos they’ll establish show that Labour adhere to the same managerial ideology that has plagued British politics for decades: stakeholderism.

‘Stakeholderism, as explained by the Adam Smith Institute’s Sam Bidwell, is ‘the idea that a dense concentration of power in the hands of elected politicians is inherently dangerous’. Hence, decisions usually made by politicians are delegated to so-called ‘experts’ – judges, regulators, bureaucrats, and academics – who make decisions on behalf of the elected political class. These actors, funded by taxpayers, form quangos that prescribe policy solutions to the government, often out of step with the average Briton.’

Things accelerated under Blair and Brown. The true triumph of stakeholderism was during the New Labour era when Blair and Brown ushered in a golden age of managerial elitism by creating institutions like the Supreme Court and granting the Bank of England independence, all the while stripping cabinet-level ministers of traditional powers.

Growth of the State Continues

However, the growth of the quangocracy continued after New Labour, despite David Cameron’s Conservative Party promising to reverse it. Cameron pledged a ‘bonfire of bureaucracy’, yet five in six quango members retained their jobs. He and the then chancellor George Osborne also established new quangos such as the OBR and the NHS Commissioning Board, both of which are still with us today.

Starmer’s new regime is expanding and entrenching this, and signals a continuation of a longstanding political culture of stakeholderism and managerial elitism – all of which will be paid for by us, English taxpayers.

Quangos are not elected officials, have very little oversight and the majority of people have no idea that they exist. Nobody has ever voted a quango into existence, so their funding does not have taxpayers’ consent. And worse still, they often end up having their own agendas and interests which are contradictory to those of the British public. It is also worth noting that quangos are a useful home for ex Labour MPs (if they don’t make it to the House of Lords).

Politicians Stripped

The result of politicians ceding power in this way is that they essentially become glorified local councillors, muttering on about potholes and bin collections rather than legislating on national policy issues. If MPs want to give away all their power, what’s the point in voting for them?

With Starmer at the helm, the quangocracy will continue its irrepressible rise. His regime has created a quango a week since they came to power.

So over the next few weeks I will start to draw attention to the various quangos that we are paying for but not electing. What I will reveal will shock and surprise you.