Hundreds of organisations added to the ‘Bonfire of the Quangos’

HUNDREDS of publicly funded bodies will join the list of quangos to be abolished, merged or privatised, it was reported today.

The Daily Telegraph said it had received a leaked list of 177 organisations that will be affected by the government’s drive to slash public spending.

As previously announced, the list of bodies to be abolished includes regional development agencies such as AWM,  but now includes the Commission for Integrated Transport  and the Sustainable Development Commission, amongst others.

Thousands of job losses are expected as a result of the cuts to the quangoes, which are estimated to employ 100,000 people at an annual cost of £65billion.

Regulators Postcomm and Ofcom are to be merged, and three industry training boards will be privatised. These are the Film Industry Training Board, the Construction and Skills Training Board and the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board.

The fate of a  number of organisations  remains to be decided, claims the Telegraph, including the Competition Commission, the Office of Fair Trading and the Design Council. The newspaper said Whitehall insiders “expect the majority to be abolished, removed from public funding or radically reformed”.
 
As many as 350 quangoes seem to have escaped. These include ACAS, the arbitration and conciliation service.