Budget 2009

John_Pierpoint

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

What, ALL Quangos? You want to get rid ........... The Courts Service? ................

That explains this level of service:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=20905583#post20905583

Sir_Humphrey

JasonLVC wrote: »

If you admit to not being a mind reader, then how can you make a qualified statement like "the speaker has no idea what one is"?

Anyway, I'll take your post as an apology then RP so that we can move on.

Agencies and Quangoes are frequently mixed up, the term Quango has become a cheap football for tabloid politics and journalism to cover both.

You won't win your point with cheap abuse and pedantry.

mewbie_2

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

You won't win your point with cheap abuse and pedantry.

Oh I don't know, it's served me well so far.

JasonLVC

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Agencies and Quangoes are frequently mixed up, the term Quango has become a cheap football for tabloid politics and journalism to cover both.

You won't win your point with cheap abuse and pedantry.

I'm sure RP doesn't need you to defend him.

If you read the thread properly, you'll see it was RP that started it with the not uncommon put downs ("cheap abuse and pedantry" to use your terms) of other posters for daring to speak against his much beloved Labour and deliberate mis-quoting to validate his point.

I've worked for the 'civil service' in the past (ie, a government department, an executive agency, a local council and a 'proper' quango - so kind of have a rough idea of the lay of the land:rolleyes:).

I had a view, the response was incorrect, I challenged that response, we move on. That is how a debate works Sir H and having moved on, you raising the irrelevant point again only reignites something that serves no purpose to a debate.

Rochdale_Pioneers

JasonLVC wrote: »

I'm sure RP doesn't need you to defend him.

If you read the thread properly, you'll see it was RP that started it with the not uncommon put downs ("cheap abuse and pedantry" to use your terms) of other posters for daring to speak against his much beloved Labour and deliberate mis-quoting to validate his point.

I've worked for the 'civil service' in the past (ie, a government department, an executive agency, a local council and a 'proper' quango - so kind of have a rough idea of the lay of the land:rolleyes:).

I had a view, the response was incorrect, I challenged that response, we move on. That is how a debate works Sir H and having moved on, you raising the irrelevant point again only reignites something that serves no purpose to a debate.

I think thats a fair enough statement. I would like to know which Quangos - now that we've clarified that your statement "get rid of Quangoes" (without qualification) actually was qualified - you'd get rid of.

lostinrates

The isa thing being advanced for pensionaers, is that age discrimination?

JayScottGreenspan

lostinrates wrote: »

The isa thing being advanced for pensionaers, is that age discrimination?

Sounds like it to me.

The guaranteed job or training thing for under 25s could be too. What are they going to say: "Sorry, you're 26 - f%&* off."

John_Pierpoint

Darling was over an hour into his speech before I heard him think about pensioners?

JasonLVC

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

I think thats a fair enough statement. I would like to know which Quangos - now that we've clarified that your statement "get rid of Quangoes" (without qualification) actually was qualified - you'd get rid of.

Private sector/industry talks of consolidation, merging and amlgamating departments or when a business buys a competitor there are economies of scale in having one call centre, one marketing campaign, closing down of offices, etc.

The public sector seems to set out to create separate bodies with their own budgets for individual tasks or objectives, thus more buildings being rented, more staff, more overheads, which goes against the idea of consoldiation and keeping costs down.

A full list of the various quango’s is available here : - http://quangos.ercouncil.org/home/

Clearly, there is a need to break down governmental departments into smaller chunks, but there has to be a point where too many fragments becomes counter-intuitive to progress. You have the sugar council promoting British sugar whilst the the health authority are telling you not to eat sugar as an example. You have the potato council promoting chips (www.lovechips.co.uk) whilst again, the government tells us chips make you fat.

Here's a brief list of some quango's I have personal experience/knowldge of that need not be there :-

NHS - The Regulatory Authority for Fertility and Tissue, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), The National Patient Safety Agency (food standards in hospitals,why not leave that to the FSA?).

General - The Scottish Future’s Trust, Regional Development Agencies generally (ie, Advantage West Midlands, EMDA, etc).

Food – The Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, The Sugarbeet Research and Education Committee, the Beef Assurance Scheme, the Consultative Panel on Badgers and Bovine Tuberculosis, oh and the Potato Council.

Anything to do with promotion or marketing should, in my opinion, be managed centrally by the head government department and not via a separate subsidiary body - it's not that hard after all. Most large private companies have a marketing team that can keep the business in the media and get the message across - without the need for creating a seperate business for it.

I'm not going to post endless lists, that does not make for a good thread. Basically, my objection to quango's is that there needs to be a sound business case for a quango to exist (many do serve their purposes and should remain) but those reflecting minority interests (sugarbeet, etc - not ethnic minorities!) shouldn't be allowed to exist.


Even if one little body only costs £2m a year, that is £2m that could be saved by getting rid of the body and employing 2-3 people centrally in whatever government department it used to relate to, so no need for directors, deputy directors, etc.


My apologies for the length of the post (lengthy posts do not make good reading eithre I know), but we're havig a discussion and there was a lot to cover.

JayScottGreenspan

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Darling was over an hour into his speech before I heard him think about pensioners?

Wasn't his speech about 50 minutes long?

(In which case, you might be right...)