House of Commons

Public Administration Committee

Press Notice No. 7 of Session 2000-01, dated 28 March 2001

PUBLICATION OF REPORT:

MAPPING THE QUANGO STATE

The Committee’s Fifth Report of Session 2000-2001 (HC367), will be published on Friday, 30 March 2001 at 00.01am, when it will be available from The Stationery Office. There will be no press conference. Further information is available from Committee staff (details below).

The Committee concludes The quango state is a permanent and dynamic aspect of modern government in the United Kingdom, according to a report published today by the Select Committee on Public Administration: it has just growed and is still growing.

The Select Committee report, Mapping the Quango State, provides the first-ever comprehensive map of quangos and reviews progress both on the Government’s commitment to reduce the number of non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), the executive and advisory quangos run directly by central government, and on its plans to make quangos more accountable.

The Committee finds a small net reduction in the number of NDPBs, but points out that there are only two fewer executive NDPBs serving government departments - the most important and powerful quangos. Moreover, new quangos not yet in the official statistics, like the Electoral Commission and Learning and Skills Council, will soon add to that total; and some quangos, like the Parades Commission in Northern Ireland, are omitted from the official figures.

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

The Committee was nominated on Wednesday 16 July 1997. Its terms of reference are to examine the reports of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsmen, and to consider matters relating to the quality and standards of administration provided by Civil Service departments, and other matters relating to the Civil Service.

For current membership of the Committee see the Committee’s Home Page.

Overall, the Committee lists (as of April 2000, the date of the last official quango census):

• 297 executive NDPBs serving central and devolved governments
• 536 advisory NDPBs serving central and devolved governments
• 303 task forces serving central and devolved governments
• 111 regional quangos in England
• 134 quangos serving devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales
• 55 quangos serving the Northern Ireland Assembly and NI Office
• 5,338 quangos at local level in the United Kingdom as a whole
• 2,295 zone boards and partnerships

These figures should not be aggregated since there is an element of double-counting. Nevertheless, they give an accurate idea of the scale of the quango state and its growing importance at regional, sub-national and local levels.

The Committee expresses some concern about task forces, which are not governed by Nolan rules as they are classified as temporary advisory bodies. The mapping exercise uncovered 52 task forces which were older than two years - the life-span recommended by the Neil Committee on Standards in Public Life - and nine more than three years old. The Committee notes that another 30 task forces were on the brink of exceeding the two-year limit at the time of its census.

The Committee used separate sets of criteria to measure accountability of executive and advisory quangos at all levels of the state. Its survey of accountability finds that executive NDPBs comply with just over half (52 per cent) of the criteria - which cover public audit, freedom of information, public access to documents and meetings, etc. The average rate of compliance among advisory NDPBs across a similar set of criteria for openness, consultation and accountability is only 11 per cent.

The Committee expresses particular concern about the low level of public access to both executive and advisory NDPBs, noting that public confidence in the advisory NDPBs on the safety of food, drugs, GM crops, etc, is very low. It is recommended that the Government should seek to dispel popular suspicions by creating an open regime for advisory committees to allow peer review and public access to documents and meetings; and that they should be required by statute to maintain public registers of members’ interests.

The report contains detailed information about the accountability of NDPBs, regional and local quangos, in a series of tables and annexes, and a separate volume will contain a full list of task forces with membership and other information.

Committee Chairman, Tony Wright, MP said:

“We believe that this report provides the best map to date of the quango state. Whatever view is taken of quangos, it is essential that we can identify them clearly and assess how accountable they are. This report helps us to do both.”

Enquiries about the work of the Committee:

Public Administration Committee,
House of Commons,
London SW1A 0AA

Telephone: 020-7219 3284
Fax: 020-7219 6864

E-mail: pubadmincom@parliament.uk