Prescott not quangos will end up on the bonfire

Expert attacks quango mangle
Nov 1 2004
Martin Shipton, Western Mail

THE man who chaired the Yes campaign at the time of the 1997 devolution referendum has launched a devastating attack on Rhodri Morgan's planned "bonfire of the quangos".
In an article for the November edition of the Institute of Welsh Affairs' journal Agenda, Professor Kevin Morgan of Cardiff University describes the Assembly Government's attempts to sell the "bonfire" as "a new low in the history of political spin in Wales".
In July the First Minister announced that the Welsh Development Agency, the Wales Tourist Board and Elwa would be scrapped as quangos and brought "in house" by spring 2006. Other Assembly Sponsored Public Bodies have had to justify their continued existence.
This morning , a private meeting is taking place of affected bodies ahead of a Cabinet meeting in two weeks when it is understood decisions will be taken about which quangos should remain and which should be scrapped.
In his article, Professor Morgan says, "According to the new conventional wisdom, the incorporation of the quangos will render their functions more accountable. But accountable to whom? To Cabinet Ministers? To the Assembly? Or to Welsh civil society? That these distinctions are rarely, if ever, drawn shows the extent to which the wider public and civic dimensions of accountability have shrivelled into a narrow and desiccated form of political accountability.
"The key point to make is that, with the advent of the Assembly, the quangos are already accountable in so many different ways that it beggars belief that anyone can seriously suggest that Wales suffers from the same democratic deficit as it did in the Welsh Office era. In post-devolution Wales the democratically elected Minister holds his or her quango to account in multiple ways: by controlling the purse strings, by appointing the chair, by selecting the board, by setting the strategic targets and, ultimately, by sacking the chair and the board if the targets are not met. On top of all these political control mechanisms, the quango is also subject to internal and external auditors and, most visibly, to the public scrutiny of the relevant subject committee of the Assembly.
"On the basis of the evidence to date, it seems that incorporation is being sought not so much for accountability, because that exists already, as for day-to-day control, the one thing that eludes politicians in the present system.
"According to Andrew Davies, the Economic Development Minister, the incorporation of the WDA, the WTB and Elwa will create powerful 'one-stop shop' departments with 'increased commercial focus'. The notion that people become more commercially focused when they become civil servants is at best novel and at worst risible. It is novel because it reverses a century of political science thinking, which suggests that arm's length bodies afford governments more commercial flexibility than they would otherwise enjoy. It is risible because nobody outside the Assembly believes it.
"No less worrying is the lack of evidence for some of the other claims made on behalf of incorporation. For example, Andrew Davies claims he had 'wide-ranging support for these changes from the business community'. This extraordinary statement signals a new low in the history of political spin in Wales. The truth of the matter was very different: not only was the business community never consulted, but the CBI actually said that the decision 'calls into question the nature of the Assembly's partnership with business'.
"But most worrying of all is the hubris. Within days of the news, the Minister for Economic Development issued a joint statement with the WDA chairman, saying the new 'commercial organisation' would be 'the best of its kind not only in the UK, but in Europe'. Again, what we have here is a triumph of spin over substance because neither of them has bothered to commission the commercial benchmarking to know what constitutes 'best practice' in the UK, let alone Europe. Let's hope that some humility tempers the hubris because we all know what follows hubris."