Prime Minister Andy Burnham is facing calls to scrap a range of "arms-length" government bodies after a new report warned that the number of unelected officials making decisions has risen sharply.
The study by Policy Exchange argues that Natural England, the Environment Agency, the Children's Commissioner and the School Teachers' Review Body should all be abolished. These organisations, also known as quangos, were created by the government but operate independently despite making or influencing key decisions.
Opposition backs report
Alex Burghart, deputy leader of the opposition, backed the report. The Tory MP said: "Over recent decades, powers have been increasingly out-sourced to a proliferation of public bodies in a manner which is neither responsive nor proportionate."
He added: "This dilution of democratic power impairs the ability of elected politicians to deliver the manifesto commitments on which they were elected, while enabling unaccountable quangos to bring in sweeping regulations – in some cases costing business hundreds of millions of pounds a year – without reference to Ministers or Parliament."
Growing numbers and budgets
There are now more than 300 arms-length bodies employing nearly 400,000 staff, up from 238,847 in 2012-13. Some have massive budgets, with the Environment Agency receiving £2.1 billion, up by 20 percent over the past ten years.
Critics say the agency has blocked or delayed vital infrastructure projects, damaging the economy. Natural England, another arms-length government body, is believed to have delayed construction of at least 100,000 homes.
Mitigation demands have included a £100 million bat tunnel for the HS2 high speed rail line, and £700 million of fish-deterrent equipment at Hinkley Point C power station.
Call for reform
Dame Patricia Hodgson DBE, former Chair of Ofcom and of the School Teachers' Review Body, said in a Foreword to the report: "Budgets and the scale of interventions into the operations of business, public services and individual lives continue to grow. Collectively, such operations can create an unaccountable state, a failure of governance that fragments our political system.
"Where possible, the number of arm's-length bodies should be reduced by abolishing them, with their functions either also abolished, or, where they remain necessary, reintegrated back into departments. When restructuring or merging failed arm's-length bodies, the Government must set up new senior teams, not just transfer staff from the old bodies across to the new."
As well as calling for some organisations to be axed, the think tank said those that remained should have a ten-year life-span which could be extended by Parliament following a review into whether they were still needed.
