Quango cuts: full list of bodies under review

Radiantsoul

There is a bit of a fashon for the idea of a third sector partnerships as it is a way of offloading certain task on the cheap.
I am not convinced it will ever quite work though. As Bob Crow said no-one is going to volunteer to pick up rubbish on a cold February. And rightfully anything that government spends is going to be have to be audited, forms filled in, etc. People who volunteer might not want to get involved in all the bureaucracy.

nearlynew

Quangos are all about jobs for the boys.

And most of their effort and money goes into lobbying the government for more money.

And when they get more money, they don't do anything worthwhile, they employ more people so that they can lobby for more money.
And so on...

It would be comical if it wasn't so wasteful and corrupt.

Bunch of lying f*cking thieves.

Radiantsoul

nearlynew wrote: »

Quangos are all about jobs for the boys.

And most of their effort and money goes into lobbying the government for more money.

And when they get more money, they don't do anything worthwhile, they employ more people so that they can lobby for more money.
And so on...

A rather superficial analysis.
Probably they are more a result of the unintended consequences of rolling back the state.

nearlynew

Radiantsoul wrote: »

A rather superficial analysis.
Probably they are more a result of the unintended consequences of rolling back the state.

Yeah, rolling back the state at the same time as taxing us more to pay for quangos to "do" what used to be provided by the state.


Brilliant

ILW

nearlynew wrote: »

Yeah, rolling back the state at the same time as taxing us more to pay for quangos to "do" what used to be provided by the state.


Brilliant

Seems that finally the state may be doing a bit less (including quangos) as half the stuff never needed doing in the first place.

blueboy43

Generali wrote: »

Cycling England doesn't fund bikeability, the Treasury does using your taxes.

If you get rid of Cycling England you can keep bikeability under the auspices of local authorities or the Education Dept or the Department for Transport.

A little pedantic, but yes, taxpayers money funds bikeability.

Do we need Cycling England ?

Probably not - although someone in cycling must be doing something right as cycling is enjoying a relative boom.

Sustrans (http://www.sustrans.org.uk/) should be the model for promotion of cycling - a charity that get money from a variety of sources - yes including taxpayers via DoT, and it does seem to duplicate a fair amount of what cycling england does.

The problem with getting local authorities / D of Edn. to do it, is that unless you ring-fence the money, then that will be the first area to be cut.

As you are a keen cyclist & general hater of government, can you suggest a way that cycle lanes, national cycle networks etc could be funded purely from the private sector ?

ILW

blueboy43 wrote: »

As you are a keen cyclist & general hater of government, can you suggest a way that cycle lanes, national cycle networks etc could be funded purely from the private sector ?

Bring in a Lycra tax.

Generali

blueboy43 wrote: »

As you are a keen cyclist, can you suggest a way that cycle lanes, national cycle networks could be funded purely from the private sector ?

No I can't. I can say with certainty that British cycle lane provision generally sits between being very poor and being more dangerous than the cycle lane not existing at all (eg the cycle lane running west from the Tower of London).

Having riden probably 1,000 miles or more of UK cycleways, probably only the Thames Path from Barnes to near Henley can be described as excellent and even then it's not passable on a road bike.

Lots of very excellent single track (narrow, hilly off road paths in the countryside) to be had in Surrey, Sussex and Kent it should be said. I'm not sure how much Government financed maintenance that gets though.

lynzpower

Do find it ever so interesting that the Audit commission is to be binned off. What will it be replaced with? A private company telling the state how to tender to private companies?

Binning off the SIA is a crack-pot idea, the security industry has revolutionised in that assorted hard-men and knuckledraggers been forced out of the role, and that all SIA badged staff must be fully checked as not criminals. Interestingly clampers must be regulated by the SIA, interesting that this government is to do away with this organisation when its also making clamping illegal on private land.... how will this be regulated? Will the police do it~? Will the police check doormen at nightclubs. I can sense us going straight back to the 80s on this one where any old muppet ( untrained and unchecked) can use brute force under the guise of "security"

Cafcass being under consideration. That is a big one. As is the GSCC being binned off.

Baby out with bathwater- for sure.

kabayiri

We should also remember the other functions Quangos perform.

Chief executives and senior types never really get fired from a high up job, in a senior government department or whatever. Instead, they rotate amongst roles of an equally senior level. Rotation can often be accompanied by rewarding incremental jumps in salary and bonus. Quangos are a great way of providing extra roles at a high level.

Then there is the 'blame game'. It is much easier for a government department to blame another body, like a Quango, rather than accept they might be culpable in the first place. If organised well, quangos could blame other quangos in a perfect circular structure.

Cynical? Yeah, but I think we have a right to be.