Fink in The Times, on the subject of quangoes lobbying at the Tory Party 2008 Conference in Birmingham:
The bewildering range of organisations that are arms of the State, most of which I own and pay for, include many I didn't even know existed. Organise yourself properly up here in Birmingham and you could meet the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, the Economic Development Agency for Manchester, the Northwest Regional Development Agency, reEmploy, the Food Standards Agency and Sport England. And with the Big Lottery Fund, Birmingham City Council, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, the Commission for Rural Communities and London 2012.
Perhaps you could fit in the National Association of Local Councils, the Environment Agency, the BBC World Service, the British Council, the Electoral Commission, Network Rail and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Or the Financial Services Authority (special guest speaker - me)
Don't forget the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Kent County Council, Transport for London, London Councils, the South East England Development Agency, the British Library and Arts Council England. And the Mayor's Office of the London Borough of Lewisham - wouldn't want to miss them.
And naturally the employees of all these bodies are here, too, putting their point - the Police Federation, the NHS Confederation, the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of School and College Leaders, the Royal College of Nursing, and, oh, I give up.
Via Tom Clougherty.
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6 comments:
...as someone has posted recently elsewhere.....
You cannot cut the costs of these individual agencies - they would make too much noise. The only thing you can do is cut out the agencies themselves & see what happens!
Which half of them would you like to get rid off?
John of Enfield
... er, both halves? How about you?
Is there a complete list of all the quangoes in the UK, I've seen a partial ist on wikipedia but that only has about 50 or so and doesn't include the likes of the British Potato Council.
R, try the 'Quangos Directory' in my 'Useful stuff' section.
That's a useful link, it's parasite central.
"You cannot cut the costs of these individual agencies - they would make too much noise."
And...?
Let them make as much noise as they want - if after 60 days, nothing in their sphere of 'authority' has blown up, fallen over or grown, then we can do without them, can't we?
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