UK Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude today released a list of around 200 Government-backed bodies – or ‘quangos’ – that will be axed as a part of cost-cutting measures.
A number of high profile green quangos were thought to be at risk including the Carbon Trust – which now appears to have had a repreive.
Initial announcements indicate that first casualties include the Advisory Committee on Carbon Abatement Technologies, the Renewables Advisory Board and the Renewable Fuels Agency, whose functions will now be drawn back under the control of the Department for Transport.
The first casualties will join the Infrastructure Planning Commission and Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the abolition of which were announced earlier in the summer, and the Sustainable Development Commission, from which Defra has withdrawn support.
Meanwhile, those escaping the axe include the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority, Coal Authority (although it is still under review by the Department of Energy and Climate Change), Committee on Climate Change, Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, Ofgem (though, as above, also under review), Environment Agency, OFWAT and the Technology Strategy Board.
Uncertainty continues to hang over a number of quangos, which are still under consideration. And even those that have been retained, such as the Environment Agency and OFWAT, could still be subject to major reform.
But DECC says that the majority of its public bodies “are considered to have met one of the three tests set out to determine whether an arm’s length public body remains the right delivery mechanism”, which could signal a reprieve.
To meet the review’s criteria, quangos have to perform a technical function, require political impartiality or act independently to establish facts.