Government quango action can proceed with passing of Public Bodies Act

The Government will now begin to abolish Regional Development Agencies, which are to be replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships. The Government said that reforms using the powers in the new Public Bodies Act will begin immediately. 

The Government reviewed more than 900 public bodies last year and announced that it would reduce the number of public bodies by 250.

In total 199 public bodies will cease to exist, the Government said.  If their functions are needed they will be brought back into Government, devolved to local Government, or moved out of Government. Where they are not needed, they will be abolished altogether.

A further 120 bodies will be merged into 56 bodies and 176 bodies will be substantially reformed, the Government said.

In the housing sector the Government will review the Tenant Services Authority, the Audit Commission, National Tenant Voice and the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit. The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment has also lost a significant amount of Government funding and many other bodies will be slimmed down.

The Government announced its commitment to reviewing public bodies last year, but progress came to a halt because it was discovered that if a public body was created by legislation, additional legislation was needed to review the body.

The Public Bodies Act enables the reforms to public bodies and allows the Government to abolish or merge them, transfer or devolve their functions, or reform the way they operate.

The Act is an enabling act which means it will not itself make any changes to public bodies and  that the powers in the Act can also only be used in conjunction with important safeguards around prior consultation, Parliamentary scrutiny and judicial independence, the Government said.

The Government has also announced a regular review of public bodies. “This does not end here, we are today announcing the first tranche of new regular reviews for the remaining public bodies so the quango state will never again be allowed to spiral out of control,” said Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office.

The list of the 31 non-departmental public bodies that have been identified for reviews in the first year of the three year review cycle are listed in the Written Ministerial Statement on Public Bodies Reform (5-page / 97KB PDF), published today.