A huge chunk of public spending goes on quangos. In 2021, an annual report was published by the Cabinet Office, Public Bodies 2020. It ‘gives data on non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies and non-ministerial departments’. It listed 295 such entities. Their total annual spending comes to a staggering £224bn. It is disappointing that given such a significant sum there is not greater scrutiny given to it from politicians, the media and others.
What is even worse is that the figures are so out of date. Where is the report for Public Bodies 2021? Or Public Bodies 2022? Or Public Bodies 2023? When I sent the Cabinet Office a Freedom of Information request last July, asking how much is spent on quangos, they replied that they knew but they wouldn’t tell me as, ‘we consider it is reasonable in all the circumstances that the information held should be withheld from disclosure until the future date of publication’.
In January, I asked for an update on the publication date. They replied it would be ‘in the coming months’. The transparency requirement is supposed to be subject to annual publication. That fact that it is scheduled is used as an exemption from Freedom of Information requests. That is an excuse that can be used even when the publication does not actually take place. Thus a commitment to transparency in theory is used to prevent transparency in practice.
Despite being thwarted in this way, I’m afraid it is a pretty good guess that the spending will be even higher. If spending had risen with inflation since 2020, then quangos would be in receipt of £271bn.
We have also seen a smattering of new ones emerge: Building Digital UK, the Trade Remedies Authority, Active Travel England, the Health Services Safety Investigations Body and the Office for Environmental Protection. These are just a few, and God only knows what they are all supposed to do. But I don’t imagine they will come cheap.
We can get some more clues from a few spot checks. Some individual quangos have continued to make the effort to publish their annual accounts. The Arts Council got £490m from the taxpayer in 2020. The latest accounts state the ‘funds received from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’ as being £524m.
Or take the case of the Environment Agency. That was funded by the taxpayer to the tune of £880m in 2000. The latest figures state ‘funding received from Defra; came to £1.3bn in 2022/23.
Some quangos are much smaller, of course. In 2022/23, the Office for Budget Responsibility cost us £4.4m. No ‘implausible austerity’ for their staff to worry about. Have its predictions become any more accurate with the increase in spending? CAPX.
