Sunday, January 13, 2008
When Quangos and Government Become Bloated
According to Iain Martin in the Sunday Telegraph, the annual running costs of the Electoral Commission have risen to an astonishing £24 million. I've just looked up the Conservative Party accounts and in 2006 the party spent £26 million. So the Electoral Commission is spending virtually as much as a political party. This is what happens in the world of quangocracy. It's like the NHS having more bureaucrats than doctors and nurses or beds. If ever there was a time for the Conservatives to preach the virtues of small government, it is now.
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12 comments:
Quangoes are an obscenity. Unelected people, most of whom we wouldn't touch with a 10' pole, making policy. David Cameron should promise to abolish every last quango. It would be cheaper to have all their employees on welfare.
Only those elected should be making police. That Baroness Warnecke or whatever she's called should be taken out round the back and shot. She hasn't been elected to anything and she is making important decisions on public policy.
The NHS *DOES* have more bureacrats than doctors or beds.
Did you know that the NHS employs 122,000 doctors and supports 150,000 beds.
To put these figures into context it is worth pointing out that the NHS also employs 259,000 pen pushers.
Indeed, in 1997 the NHS had 24,000 managers, it now has 39,000. What do all these people do?
And yet the EC is still not achieving the basic policing of election returns. It is an extraordinary amount yes. But without considering what they are tasked with and how they are tackling that it is difficult to judge the VFM.
Having read the online piece by Piers Morgan,I truly wonder why Brown is wasting £137,000 of taxpayers money on his latest spin doctor Stephen Carter.When Gordon's got Piers licking round him, he could save a lot of our money and bog roll too.
Camoron is proposing small government - he's a eurofederalist, there won't be much left of the British government soon.
I notice that the Electoral Commission invented a lot of projects for itself with very loose titles such as 'Helping People Engage In Democracy'.
It also had a scheme for engaging the Deaf, who persumably couldn't listen to 'Today' .
Various arts initiatives have included:
Hansard Society's Y Vote video project tested the effectiveness of video evidence in bringing new voices into Parliament, focusing specifically on young African and Caribbean people
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/about-us/NIFarts.cfm
Isn't this what they call 'mission creep' ?
Chris Paul says
It is difficult to judge the VFM
The EC has an audit four times a year to do this. The minutes of the meetings are available. One meeting appears to be about with whether it is necessary to read the audit report in detail.
Some good material here if you are writing a script for 'The Office'.
I'm surprised no-one has juxtaposed the other story on how people are treated by the law. Maybe you could do the service Iain.
Today's Observer has the story about Derek Pasquill being put on trial for breaking the Official Secrets Act for leaking documents to the media. It collapsed when it transpired that this course of action was over the top.
In contrast we have a multitude of stories about Labour Ministers admitting to breaching the law and the Electoral Commission does sweet FA.
Looks like high noon for the Electoral Commission if they don't treat this issue properly.
My Father-in-Law is deaf, he's never heard from the Electoral Commission.
There might be a good story here, but is there a special reason by you looked at the 1996 Conservative accounts? Anyway, the EC probably needs all its huge resources to investigate illegal underdeclarations by Labour Ministers...
Its also like the Ministry of Defence that has more penpushers than soldiers.
Is there a complete list of all the Quangos and executive agencies available online anywhere?
List of Quangos by Government Dept at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango
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