We've Been Quangoed!

A quango is a "quasi non-governmental organisation." Examples of a quango would be the Environment Agency, the Learning and Skills Council, or the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. There are about 405 quangos across the public sector.

Quangos spend £123 billion in public money each year. That's more than what is spent by democratically-elected local government!

The New Local Government Network has an interesting report out today on the transparency of quangos, and specifically, on who sits on the boards of quangos. It's very London-dominated (Rutland, intriguingly, is over-represented too). The West Midlands has only half of the representation on the boards of quangos that it should have, vis-a-vis our population.

The NLGN makes four recommendations:

- a more democratic approach to nominations and appointments is overdue
- the location of public sector bodies is critical and needs review
- applications for posts should be particularly encouraged from under-represented parts of the country
- each Cabinet Minister should publish annually the residency statistics of appointments they make

The 2nd point doesn't affect Coventry as much (we already have the HQ of the Learning and Skills Council; the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is relocating to Coventry), but the other three should be immediately acted on by the government.

Bodies that spend £123 billion a year should be transparent, representative and accountable.