Is the government serious about quangos - or just hopeful?

The joke in Whitehall is that a leak is immediately verified the moment it is dismissed as “pure speculation” by an official spokesman. But judging from the reaction of Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, and an accompanying Cabinet Office statement, the absence of any denial over an intent to scrap up to 180 quangos implies that any chagrin within government circles is about the timing of the leak rather than the content.

It’s a fair old list which the BBC Politics Show has released – almost seems as if they’re signalling what the ConDems can expect for the next two years of frozen license fees, don’t it?  But if the figures quoted by the Beeb are accurate then the proposed cull represents less than 25% of the total number of non-departental public bodies (based in England) and there are question marks as to whether there is an actual saving to be realised if staff are simply transferred back into the civil service – as happened in Wales.

Another factor which comes over as a little fuzzy is how the government can determine what is a safe timescale under which the complex activities of bodies, such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, could be safely put under the wing of a Whitehall department whilst avoiding any serious cock-ups, so to speak.

The critics – and they are not all quango chairpersons & chief executives, it seems - voice ever so reasonable-sounding concerns that newly minted coalition ministers who need time to get used to government might be led into making a series of brave, contradictory and very expensive decisions because ministerial advisors would lack sufficient knowledge in a particular field of expertise. Of course, the need for specialist advice is presumably why the quango was created; and we can safely assume that this is the argument that will be employed as to why it should remain unscathed.

These apparent gaps in government thinking are probably why ministers would rather not have seen the proposals get out at just this moment. But the claim by Big Eric that he was “not sure” about the list’s accuracy and the statement of intent by official sources will serve as a useful softening-up period nonetheless. A view expressed by some media commentators is that it will also enable expectations of monetary savings to be managed downwards.

Yet there is a scepticism as to how much of a blaze this bonfire will actually produce when it is so widely accepted, public appointments rules notwithstanding, that the chairmanship of a quango is a modern-day form of patronage bestowed by ministers to suit various political or parochial ends. Whatever measures are finally announced by the government, the assurance given by one minsterial source that the transition process will happen "over the lifetime of this parliament and possibly beyond" suggests to us that the established tradition of quid pro quango will continue at Westminster for some time yet.