By Will Straw / @wdjstraw
Politicians are meant to campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Today’s speech by David Cameron on reforming quangos was a discordant harmony. One note was aimed at a populist “slash and burn” audience and outlined the £64 billion cost of Britain’s 790 to 1100 quangos. The other was aimed at a more elite, “Sir Humphrey” audience and outlined that there were principles behind his approach. The problem is that the principles are so woolly and vague that they are unlikely to result in any cost savings at all.
Cameron set out the general implications for quangos under a Conservative government: “no quango will have the power to stray outside the scope of its responsibilities … [and] they must operate wholly within the financial resources allocated to them by Ministers.”
At the launch today I asked the Tory leader to provide specific examples of circumstances in which existing quangos had breached these principles. In his reply, he suggested that the Environment Agency had, by campaigning on the impact of climate change, over-reached the scope of its predecessor body, the National Rivers Authority, which was focused on flood defences. But Article (4)(1) of the Environment Act 1995 states that, “the principal aim of the Agency … [shall be] to protect or enhance the environment, taken as a whole, as to make the contribution towards attaining the objective of achieving sustainable development.” This is clearly consistent with outlining the effects of climate change.
In relation to the second point, Cameron drew attention to the Rural Payments Agency and HM Revenue and Customs as examples of quangos that had mishandled public resources. In 2006, RPA Chief Executive, Johnston McNeill, was fired when the RPA failed to pay out EU subsidies to thousands of farmers on time. In 2005, HMRC overpaid £1.9 billion in tax credits and then attempted to claw back the money from nearly 2 million families. But, disgraceful though these cases are, they are not examples of quangos living outside the “financial resources allocated to them” as Cameron stated in his speech.
David Cameron said, “I have many more examples that I could share with you.” That would be useful. As things stand there is little evidence that his principles for reform will result in any meaningful cost savings. As Andrew Neill uncovered on The Daily Politics today, the Tories have firm plans to create 17 new quangos and to remove just two: a net increase of 15.
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These idiots want to be the next government and they do not know the difference between a broadcaster and a quango.
excellent , gets my vote.
But that is labour thinking and labour talk. Soon, it will not something we will need concern ourselves with for a decade or two, once the party of the future leads us - go tory!
I may be misunderstanding, but would that not benefit the NHS, relieving pressure on certain areas and passing the task to a private concern for the same price?
Could you explain it to me without the quotes from the Conservatives, just plain English. I understand the point about people controlling the NHS who are not elected, just not what why bringing in private hospitals for the same price would be a bad thing?
David Cameron is such a silly man, he blusters about quangos and yet he clearly forgets that he wants to create a super-powerful, mega-quango with a budget of over £100bn.
If he does mean that, I would welcome that change - preferably right now, but I'd welcome the change.
The Tory honesty is creating that important dialogue with the public; they are going to cut quango spending and they are going to re-direct it in places.
If our democratic process is to be revived, accountability must to given to our elected officials not unelected ones. That is the theme of 'progressive' conservatism, power from the localist bottom-up not centrist top-down.
Will he deliver? The public sentiment on their aims is with them and not Labour; the public would prefer cuts in government spending to tax rises. The Tory have a much better track record on responsible government spending than this government.
Being 14% GDP in deficit and Labour's atrocious economic mismanagment means that the Tories have to deliver serious government cuts in spending.
As for Labour policy, the Tresury team met at the weekend to discuss an austerity 'Plan B' budget of swigeing cuts of 20% in current government spending.
The big difference here is Cameron is being honest; Brown can't even admit in real terms that he is cutting spending.
The British electorate deserves more than the 'main thrust', prior to the election. Cameron is just relying on speculative, uncosted sound bite-heavy proposals, which he hopes the public want to hear. Unfortunately for him, he'll inevitably be proven to be a charlatan, hopefully sooner rather than later. For info, I met with a member of the Shadow Treasury team in Portcullis House about 3 months ago. At the start of the meeting, he said his brief was to find ways to save money...
However, given the lack of control on government spending I guess that this wont be soon.