Cost of Government: the bits you don't see

mart2929Sat 24/05/08 12:22

The Taxpayers Alliance has published a survey on the numbers and costs of quangos(*) in the UK.

Summary:

* There are 1,162 quangos in the UK, running at a total cost to the taxpayer of £64 billion, equivalent to £2,550 per household.

* Using the Cabinet Office's restrictive definition of quangos, the cost of these bodies has risen 50% in the last ten years.

* UK quangos now employ an army of almost 700,000 bureaucrats.

* The Government itself does not know the full extent of quangos, which ranges from the massive e.g. Job Centre Plus (Staff: 70,042, Cost: £3.5 billion) the Courts Service (Staff: 19,986, Cost: £704.8 million); to the bizarre e.g. the British Potato Council (Staff: 49); the West Northants Development Corporation (Staff: 34, Cost: £15.3 million)

* When the total number of quangos is added to the other government subsidiaries such as local authorities and NHS trusts, the total number of organisations controlled by the UK Government rises to 2,063, costing the taxpayer £257 billion and employing over 5.1 million people.

British government has grown over the past 100 years with virtually no parts of normal life untouched directly by it. Government is 45.1% of GDP (higher if you include Northern Rock, estimates range from 48% to 51%), employs 20% of the available workforce and either regulates or, worse, provides every service available to UK citizens.

The full report is a useful reference for measuring the size (and scope) of government.

http://tpa.typepad.com/bettergovernment/2008/05/quangos-the-uns.html

Note the opaqueness of the legal services and agriculture services. Regarding the numbers of people employed, in each case, ask what they are doing to justify the job. Remember, you are paying for these people: how are they serving you ? And if they are not, why are you paying for them?

(*) a quango is a "quasi-non-governmental-organisation", i.e. a body incorporated by government or parliament, or controlled by either government or parliament. Most quangos - if not all of them - are undemocratic because their funding is unconditional, i.e. their existence does not vary with market pricing or direct elections. One might argue that they represent corruption!

paulbrettSat 24/05/08 12:36

quoting > ". . . quangos, which ranges from the massive . . . to the bizarre e.g. the British Potato Council (Staff: 49)"

Here we go again . . . to pick one of the many nits in your post, what's so bizarre about the Potato Council? It's an industry-funded organisation (so no cost to the taxpayer there) which undertakes R&D and provides information and advisory services of mutual benefit to potato growers. I would have expected you to think this is A Good Thing, particularly when compared with the old MAFF, where these activities were funded out of general taxation.

Now even I, still a bit of a liberal-lefty after all these years, think there are some areas that government should not meddle in, but really mart2929, you'll need to assemble your arguments better than this to get my support.