Written evidence from Professor Matthew
Flinders, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield
1. The global financial crisis and the specific
pressures on public spending in the United Kingdom have forced
the Coalition Government to review the structure of the state
and the role played by quangos. The Public Administration Select
Committee's (PASC) inquiry into quangos therefore represents an
incredibly timely opportunity to cultivate a mature and balanced
discussion regarding the use of quasi-autonomous public bodies
within the British administrative system.
2. Most academic and journalistic accounts
of the role played by quangos within British governance have tended
to create more heat than light.
3. This memorandum attempts to respond to
this situation by daring to suggest that quangos, as part of a
reformed governance system, may actually help revitalise public
engagement in politics. They can therefore be examined as one
element of a broader debate concerning the "Big Society".
4. A commitment to launch a "cull of
quangos" has been part of every government manifesto since
the early 1970s. The general pattern, however, has been a small
amount of "cosmetic pruning" (inevitably involving the
abolition of advisory bodies and the amalgamation of small executive
bodies) followed by an expansion of the general sphere of "delegated
governance".i
5. Nobody knows exactly how many quangos
exist. This reflects a number of definitional debates and the
British constitution's inherent preference for "muddling
through". A review of all quangos (ie non-departmental public
bodies (NDPBs), special health authorities, non-ministerial departments,
public corporations, "floating bodies" that have simply
been created, etc.) was undertaken in 2004 in response to a previous
PASC report but the results were never published due to political
concerns about the number of bodies that were identified. The
British state has been "walking without order" for some
time. ii
6. The PASC should not therefore restrict
its inquiry to executive NDPBs.
7. The Coalition Government has already
announced the abolition of a number of quangos. Three tests have
been outlined by the Government—is the function technical;
does it need to be politically impartial; and do facts need to
be determined transparently?—in order to decide which bodies
should be abolished. These will be enshrined in the Public
Bodies (Reform) Bill.
8. These criteria are far too broad and
leave huge areas of discretion (and therefore confusion). This
was clear from the leaked Cabinet Office memo that was published
by The Telegraph on 23 September 2010. This suggested that
177 quangos had been identified for abolition, four for privatisation,
129 for amalgamation into just 57 bodies and 94 quangos would
be "kept under review". The lists of "births, deaths
and marriages" reveal very little in terms of consistency
or a clear rationale. For example, it remains unclear why the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is earmarked for
abolition, despite its technical knowledge and expertise, at exactly
the same time as the new Office for Budget Responsibility is being
established.
9. The criteria are therefore under-developed
and the review process for deciding on how any quango sits against
these tests remains opaque. The specific process for reviewing
quangos, how the review process is constructed in terms of members,
the role of representatives of the organisation in question within
the review process and particularly how the procedure varies for
cross-border public bodies needs to be clarified.
10. The document published in The Telegraph
on 23 September 2010 had been leaked to the press and should therefore
be treated with caution. However the contents of the document
combined with the previous reports of the PASC does point to a
more fundamental weakness at the centre of British governance.
11. As the Institute for Government's Read
Before Burning report highlighted in July 2010, the use of
quangos as a tool of governance is not in itself a problem. Quangos
exist in all advanced liberal democracies around the world. The
real problem stems from the lack of any clear governing framework
or set of principles that regulate the use and role of quangos.
A clear set of principles and organisational forms would facilitate
the use of these bodies within a coherent and transparent framework.
The question is therefore whether the Coalition Government has
the energy or capacity to address this deeper basic problem. This
would involve the design of probably no more than four formal
organisational categories. All existing bodies would then have
to be designated within a specific form (for which the appointment,
accountability and audit procedures would be clearly set out)
and new bodies would be established as a specific form of organisation
within this framework.
12. The long-term financial savings of reforming
quangos will only be realised if measures are taken to prevent
the ad hoc creation of new bodies in the future. In this
context the Minister for the Cabinet Office's statement that the
Government supports an enhanced role for select committees in
the decision to create new bodies in the future is a welcome development—but
one that must be tied to a more coherent governance framework.
13. Designing the specific organisational
forms and deciding how existing bodies should be re-classified
would essentially require a thorough administrative "Spring
clean" but the results would be significant in terms of increasing
economic efficiency, reducing the complexity of delivery chains,
clarifying lines of accountability, and improving the strategic
capacity of ministers (many of whom have no idea how many or which
quangos they are actually responsible for).
14. The current confusion and opacity reflects
the fact that the capacity of the Cabinet Office to oversee and
regulate the creation of quangos, as well as offer advice and
support to departments, has been gradually hollowed-out in recent
decades. The Haldane Report of 1918 recognised the need to support
departments and monitor the role and number of quangos. The Anderson
Committee of 1942, however, found the number and range of quangos
"bewildering…it is impossible to deduce, either from
existing practice or theoretical considerations, any general rule
on the matter". As a result the committee recommended the
creation of both a centrally maintained and comprehensive list
of quangos. It also recommended the establishment of a central
team of officials whose role would be to disseminate guidance
and "best practice", provide training on specialist
roles such as departmental sponsorship, and generally prevent
the ad hoc proliferation of quangos that had occurred in the past.
These recommendations were never fully implemented. The Machinery
of Government division within the Cabinet Office was gradually
run-down throughout the 1990s and today not event the small "Agencies
and Public Bodies Team" exists. A central strategic unit
should be established to provide strategic monitoring, guidance
and support across Whitehall.
15. This process of mapping the state should
be undertaken in a careful and considered manner. Media demands
for an immediate "bonfire of quangos" should be rejected
and (most of all) those serving within quangos should not find
out the fate of their organisation through the media. Tens of
thousands of members of the public serve on the boards of quangos
at the local, regional and national level for absolutely no financial
remuneration. As Lord Nolan discovered in the mid-1990s, only
a tiny proportion of those individuals serving on the boards of
public bodies (usually the chairperson) actually receive a significant
salary for their service. Contrary to the media caricature, the
board of a quango is not a place to go to make money.
16. In light of the fact that the majority
of appointees view their work on the boards of quangos as a pro
bono contribution to public life the committee might consider
the issue of incentives and appointment procedures. In recent
years the role of select committees in relation to a range of
the most senior ministerial appointments to quangos has increased
dramatically. The latest stage of this rapidly changing relationship
was the Chancellor of the Exchequer's announcement last month
of his intention to give the Treasury Select Committee a statutory
veto over ministerial appointments to the new Office for Budgetary
Responsibility.
17. The growing role and capacity of select
committees in relation to ministerial appointments may help assuage
public concerns regarding transparency and accountability. At
the same time, however, three related issues and anomalies (politicisation,
regulatory overlap, and complexity) demand attention.
18. The opportunity for a select committee
to question a minister's preferred candidate under the pre-appointment
scrutiny procedure creates a danger that the individual will be
drawn into broader party political arguments. The unfortunate
politicisation of candidates, as the experience of the current
Children's Commissioner for England, Dr Maggie Atkinson, before
the Education Committee in October 2009 arguably demonstrated,
is an issue that risks deterring talented individuals from applying
for vacancies. The lesson from legislative confirmation hearings
in other countries is that many candidates walk away from appointments
because they feel that the appointments process is simply abusive.
This is generally linked to aggressive committee appearances in
which applicants are asked about their personal life and asked
hostile questions about their background.
19. The relationship between the regulatory
scrutiny of ministerial appointments (by the Commissioner for
Public Appointments) and the parliamentary scrutiny of appointments
(by select committees) remains unclear. Many of the positions
that fall within the remit of pre and post-appointment hearings
are already subject to the rules and procedures of the Commissioner
and it is therefore unclear what the "added value" of
the parliamentary stage brings to the process.
20. This concern regarding regulatory overlap
flows into a broader concern about complexity. The governance
of public appointments to quangos has possibly become congested
in terms of institutions and processes. A vast range of independent
appointment commissions now exist—House of Lords Appointments
Commission, Appointments Commission, Office of the Commissioner
for Public Appointments, the Civil Service Commission, Judicial
Appointments Commission—without any little rationale for
why differing powers have been granted to different commissions.
My concern is that processes have become too slow and cumbersome—a
"maelstrom of complexity"—to the point that public
appointments are becoming unattractive to the very people the
public sector needs to recruit.
21. If the gap that has apparently emerged
between the governors and the governed is to be closed then new
opportunities and arenas of public engagement will have to be
cultivated. Public service on the boards of public bodies at the
local, regional and national level provides a way in which large
numbers of people who have little interest in either standing
for elected office or partisan party politics more generally can
make a contribution to society. Quangos therefore offer a degree
of democratic potential that has not been acknowledged or fully
explored within debates about the "shrinking state"
and the "Big Society".
REFERENCESi For
a review see, Flinders, M.2004. "Distributed Public Governance
in Britain", Public Administration, 82 (4), 883-909.
ii Flinders, M. 2008. Delegated Governance
and the British State: Walking Without Order (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
October 2010
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