Quangos must prove money is spent wisely

EVERY unelected quango will have to prove it is spending public money wisely and accountable to voters, David Cameron said yesterday.

The Tory leader will order a review of all government agencies and external bodies if he becomes Prime Minister, threatening to axe some and overhaul others.

Signalling what has been dubbed a "bonfire of quangos", Mr Cameron said there could be more than 1,000 such bodies operating in Britain today.

He said: "This growth in the number of quangos, and in the scope of their influence, raises important questions for our democracy and politics.

"Questions about public spending control – now vital in the light of the debt crisis and questions relating to the effectiveness of politics in addressing the key social problems that give people such great concern.

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"Too many state actions, services and decisions are carried out by people who cannot be voted out by the public, by organisations that feel no pressure to answer for what happens – in a way that is completely unaccountable."

He singled out the Rural Payments Agency which had "driven farmers mad" when the allocation of farming subsidies ground to a halt in 2005.

Thousands of farmers were pushed to the brink when payments which were planned into budgets failed to appear when the system went into freefall. Ministers repeatedly blamed the system, which critics said had been too ambitious.

Mr Cameron said the RPA and quangos like it were part of the culture that means "so many people feel that nothing ever changes, nothing will ever get done and that government's automatic response to any problem is to pass the buck and send people from pillar to post until they just give up in exasperated fury".

He added that too often, when ministers are challenged over the failings of quangos, "the answer is pretty much a 'not me guv' shrug of the shoulders".

"There is a serious accountability problem with our political system," he said.

"Any serious programme aimed at redistributing power from the political elite must address the role of quangos in creating this accountability problem and must include a serious plan to reform them."

Mr Cameron announced communications regulator Ofcom will cease to exist "as we know it" with its policy-making functions it has transferred back to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

However Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw, the MP for Exeter, said the Tory leader had "misunderstood" Ofcom's role. "It is not to make policy decisions, but to provide advice," Mr Bradshaw said. "Ministers make policy decisions, so exactly what potential savings the Tories are claiming is open to doubt."

The Local Government Association agreed it was time for a "radical overhaul of the quango state".

However, Labour's Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne said the Conservatives had committed themselves to creating 17 new quangos if they came to power.

One of the Westcountry's most powerful – and biggest spending – quangos, the Regional Development Agency, is already facing an uncertain future under a Tory government.

The demise of the South West Regional Development Agency as it currently operates has been hinted at by senior Conservatives for several months.

The party is committed to repealing the laws which gives the RDA its powers, and leave it up to councils to decide if the body should continue and in what form.