The "bonfire" a damp squib?

In 1997 Gordon Brown promised a "bonfire of the quangos", because they were "government in secret, free from public scrutiny".

The Cabinet Office has recently released figures on the spending on quangos. For once the total spending has been reduced. This was only because one quango, the "Strategic Rail Authority" has been wound down and its work transferred to the Department of Transport. There was thus a notional saving of £2.5 billion. The remaining quangos, increased in number, required an increase in spending of £1.7 billion.

The amount of money passing through the quangos has risen almost every year, - see an earlier blog message. There has also been a relentless growth in staff. In 2007, for instance, staff at the Home Office quangos rose by 1,671, while those in Health Department quangos rose by 600 or so.

The Cabinet Office figures revealed that 13 out of 16 Whitehall departments failed to reduce their spending on quangos in 2007, with 7 actually creating new ones. More are due to arrive in 2008.

The bonfire has failed to materialise. Money and staff are increasingly located in the quangos, which in some cases are coming to resemble regional government.

The broken promise is annoying - John Major also failed to reduce them, but it is their significance which is worrying - the unelected, un-transparent bodies with cronies on board, and unaccountable domination of much of local government must be of concern to those who love democracy.

I have written it before, but is there any surprise that election turnout is so low, when unelected Brussels, Downing Street sofa and quangos make the decisions that dominate our lives. Democracy is not merely having the right to vote, - they have that in Zimbabwe in name, rather it is having a say in the way your community and country are run.