QUANGOS IN BRITAIN Also from Macmillan Edited by B. L. R. Smith and D. C. Hague THE DILEMMA OF ACCOUNTABILITY IN MODERN GOVERNMENT Edited by B. L. R. Smith THE NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY The Public Use of the Private Sector Edited by D. C. Hague, W. J. M. Mackenzie and A. Barker PUBLIC POLICY AND PRIVATE INTERESTS The Institutions of Compromise QUANGOS IN BRITAIN Government and the Networks of Public Policy-Making Edited by Anthony Barker Department of Government, University of Essex © Anthony Barker 1982 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1s t edition 1982 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published 1982 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Lorulon and Basingstoke Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-05615-6 ISBN 978-1-349-05613-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-05613-2 Contents List of Tables and Figures vii Preface ix Notes on the Contributors xii PART ONE: A NETWORK OF ORGANISATIONS I. Governmental bodies and the networks of mutual accountability Anthony Barker, University of Essex 3 2. A triangular affair: quangos, Ministers, and MPs Richard Wilding, Civil Service Department 34 3. Governmental bodies and government growth Christopher Hood, University of Glasgow 44 4. Quasi-government in Scotland: Scottish fonns within a British setting Brian W. Hogwood, Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde 69 PART TWO: CASES AND CONTEXTS 5. The quasi-government of Scottish education Charles D. Raab, University of Edinburgh 91 6. The DHSS-Rowntree Memorial Trust Family Fund; an innovation in quasi-government Jonathan Bradshaw, University of York 108 7. The Housing Corporation and 'voluntary housing' Norman Lewis and Ian Harden, University of Sheffield 121 v vi Contents 8. Quasi-government for consumers Leonard Tivey, University of Birmingham 137 9. Quasi-official bodies in local government Paul F. Cousins, Kingston Polytechnic 152 PART THREE: THEMES AND ANALYSIS 10. Patronage and quasi-government: some proposals for reform Anne Davies, Outer Circle Policy Unit 167 11. Quasi-governmental sector professionalism: some impli cations for public policy-making in Britain Patrick Dunleavy, London School of Economics and Political Science 181 12. Accountability, control, and complexity: moving beyond ministerial responsibility Nevil Johnson, NuffieLd CoLLege. Oxford 206 APPENDIX: Quango - a word and a campaign Anthony Barker 219 References 232 Index of organisations 242 General index 246 List of Tables and Figures TABLES 3.1 Total civil service staff excluding Post Office 1951-78 45 3.2 Governmental organisations referred to in Estimates 1964-5 and 1977-8 for three policy areas 49 3.3 Governmental bodies disappearing from the Estimates between 1964-5 and 1977-8 50 4.1 Sponsoring departments and geographical coverage of central Government-sponsored bodies in Scotland 73 4.2 Number of each type of governmental body in Scotland 75 4.3 Joint local authority bodies in Scotland 76 4.4 Sources of variation among governmental bodies 82 9.1 Examples of fifty-six unofficial and quasi-official bodies in Bromley London Borough 1974-8 156 9.2 Examples of twenty-seven exactly similar bodies connected to the GLC and relevant within Bromley LB 1974-8 157 9.3 Classification and examples of the bodies connected to Bromley LB and the GLC 158 FIGURES Il.l A typology of government-business relations 190 11.2 The policy system for British civil nuclear power 192 11.3 A typology <i relations between state agencies, professions, and private corporations 194 II.4a Control, consultation, and interest representation between Central Authority and decentralised agencies in a non-professionalised policy system 199 11.4b Ideological influence flows between Central Authority and decentralised agencies in a professionaiised system 200 vii Preface The Public Administration Committee is a national academic association of nearly all British universities and polytechnics teaching political science and government studies, which promotes this branch of the discipline and aims to have close links with practitioners in central and local government - and in the quasi-governmental organisations or 'quangos' with which this particular book is concerned. The PAC's annual conference of 1979 was on the theme 'The World of Quasi-Government' and, as its academic convenor for that year, I must first thank the Committee for having accepted this proposed theme and the many colleagues who made a large and successful gathering out of its discussion. The majority of this book's chapters were delivered as conference papers on that occasion in September 1979 and I am grateful to those authors for having been willing to reduce and adapt their texts. I am also most grateful to the other authors who agreed, one or two at short notice, to contribute additional chapters to give the book a wider range. Apart from a valuable document from the independent Outer Circle Policy Unit (What's Wrong With Quangos?) of 1979, whose author, Anne Davies, contributes one of the chapters below, this book is the first serious study of the 'quasi-government' theme in Britain of more than article-length since the three volumes of research and analysis arising from the Carnegie Corpora tion's Anglo-American Project on Accountability, the most recent of which appeared in 1975 (all three were also from Macmillan). Propagandist pamphlets have not been lacking, however, and they helped to launch a culling expedition against 'quangos' during 1979-80. Like the well-known 'Small Earthquake in Peru' (conceived in a contest to devise the most boring possible headline for The Times), it left 'not many dead'. The Public Administration Committee's conference on quasi-government was intended to increase both academic and political awareness of the nature and problems of the modern tendency to spread governmental authority and activity across society in ways other than simple additions to either the Statute Book, or the formal responsibilities of Ministers, or the rise of the civil service. Of course, the number of pages of legislation and the formal responsibilities of Ministers have indeed increased greatly since the War (although the civil ix x Preface service is smaller). But a great deal of public policy is now handled by, or through, or in some relationship to, organisations which are not formally part of either central or local government and which may not even take their existence or practical remit from an Act. These bodies - hundreds of them - have come to be known to the press and broadcasters as 'quangos', a near-acronym which I derived from the rather roundabout (and originally American) technical term 'quasi-non governmental organisation'. In the dangerously catchy form of 'quango', this general idea of often new bodies which stand somewhere between government and private society has become much more widely known in the last few years. It is a messy as well as a complicated subject, but the political principles involved are of great importance. Are these many bodies - some next door to government itself and others almost entirely private or independent - a necessary or even laudable part of the more elaborate links between government and society which a modern, highly developed nation requires? Or are right-wing fears of creeping socialistic state control (or left-wing fears of the coming invincible marriage of monopoly corporations to the so-called liberal state) justified, so that 'quasi-government' ought to be abolished or much reduced and our political system sharply restored to the narrow but traditional basis of ministerial responsibility to Parliament, with nearly all government work done by those Ministers' own civil servants? Could Ministers and Parliament accept such an additional burden, and is their record of democratic accountability worthy of such implied admira tion? And if we keep 'quasi-government', how should it be run and controlled? Some discussion of these profound issues will be found in this book, associated with a wide range of analysis and research reporting. The Government's review of some classes of 'quangos' (Report on Non Departmental Public Bodies (Cmnd. 7797) prepared by Sir Leo Pliatzky) was published during the final editing of this book, thus allowing its text to be amended where bodies mentioned by authors were confirmed or announced in this White Paper as being due for execution or alteration. Amendment to certain numbers in some of the tables following Pliatzky was not possible, but no offence to true knowledge is committed: every list of 'quangos' is as long as a piece of string because of the difficulties of definition and classification. It is styles, methods, relationships, and accountability which matter - not allegedly precise or complete numbers of specimens. Charles Raab wishes to acknowledge the help of his colleague, Andrew McPherson, on an earlier draft of his chapter about Scottish education and the support of the Moray Fund of the University of Edinburgh while