Quango chutney

Apologies for the title. It kinda describes what I want to blog about but it's a little tenuous. Anyway, does anybody remember the issue of quangos? It was a buzz word and political issue during the last, say, five years of the Tory government. Quangos are a Tory legacy and they have continued to flourish under (New) Labour.

In my muddled opinion, the Tories did everything they could do to break-up, fragment, fracture, dilute and destroy opposition. After strikes and political strife in the 1970s, reducing the power of trades unions was a Tory objective - and one with a certain amount of public support.

The miners' strike of 1984 is a good example of this clash of ideas. The miners were defeated and the end of one of the UK's last great traditional industries (far from its heyday) was guaranteed. It was part of a huge shift in British society.

Unlike the miners' strike, quangos have never resulted in pitched battles between workers and riot police - but their influence, alongside privatisation, is just as significant.

Throughout their 18 years in power, the Tories met considerable residence to their ideas and objectives from local government - ie. city and town councils. Big cities often remained Labour strongholds even when the Tories enjoyed good majorities in parliament - a form of proportional representation, in a way. Councils spend a good chunk of public money - and money is power.

To bypass this unwanted political influence on the running of schools, transport, libraries, public services and other aspects of everyday life, the Tories turned to the Quasi Autonomous Non Governmental Organisation - the quango. These 'agencies' popped up everywhere and were given the job of spending public money.

Inward investment agencies, development agencies, independent schools, highways agencies, hospital trusts etc etc. It was a highly effective way of reducing the unwanted influence of democratically elected councils.

Though far from perfect, councils are accountable to the electorate and subject to all kinds of checks and balances. They (are supposed to) follow strict guidelines on staff treatment and recruitment. They are also committed to union representation for their staff, set targets for things like equal opportunities and usually offer progressive employment terms and conditions. As small autonomous companies, quangos are able to side-step many of these things.

I was talking a while ago to someone who had recently returned to work after maternity leave. A colleague (whose children are now grown up) compared his/her own experience of returning to work at a local authority. To paraphrase:

"They were different times back then. We had flexi-time, plenty of annual leave, creche facilities and things just seemed easier."

You don't expect to hear that things were easier fifteen or twenty years ago. Without knowing for sure, I would guess that quangos have been a backward step for the rights of the employee. On this, I can speak personally. When my local authority job was ‘seconded’ to a quango, I lost flexi-time, two days annual leave a year (and the prospect of this increasing), overtime rates, an agreed and transparent salary scheme and a handful of other, small benefits.

Looking at things another way, quangos have de-politicised public spending and removed a layer of bureaucracy. That’s definitely a good thing. But a closer look at the workings of any British city will reveal a long list of quangos. Each has their own board of directors or governors and each with their own chief executive or managing director.

All quangos have to report to a board made up of business men and women, prominent locals, councillors, representatives of religious groups and any other interested parties and individuals. Yet none of these people need to be accountable to the public or face any democratic process to be there. So who guards the guardians?

This new layer of unelected bureaucracy has given rise to a whole generation of relatively unregulated directors and executives. It has also, I believe, provided a haven of nepotism, cronyism and corruption.

Ten years after the Tories, no-one really talks about quangos anymore. Labour use them to their advantage too. No democracy can really claim to be democratic for as long as there is (to borrow a phrase from Billy Bragg) power without accountability. And as millions, most probably billions, of pounds of public money is being spent by quangos every year, that’s an awful lot of power.