Who here is in charge?

Reform Scotland believes that the increased use of quasi-governmental bodies has eroded democracy with too much political power exercised by quangos operating in a "no man’s land", where they are neither fully democratically accountable nor fully independent of government.

Although the actual number of quangos has fallen since devolution, their size and scope has increased. The number of staff employed by quangos has risen from 9,900 in 1999 to nearly 14,900 in 2008. This does not include those employed by either public corporations or the NHS, so cannot be explained by an increase in NHS employment. Quangos also account for a huge share of government spending. In 2008/09 the Scottish government spent more than £13 billion on quangos, over 40 percent of its £32 billion total budget. Most of this was accounted for by NHS bodies. However, £3.5 billion—just over 10 percent of the Scottish budget—was spent on other quangos.

One of the key disadvantages of handing over so much power and influence to non-elected quangos is that when something goes wrong ministers are given a way out. In other words they can shift responsibility, and when that happens, democracy suffers.

Whilst previous and current administrations have pledged to cut the number of quangos, these approaches have been piecemeal and lacking in any approach of principle. As a result, they have ultimately led to new quangos continuing to be created and staffing levels rising. No political party has come up with a strategy that achieves the kind of drastic reduction needed to restore transparency and accountability to the political process.

In our recent report, "Democratic Power", we argue that all 115 quangos, apart from tribunals such as the Children’s Panel system, should cease to exist altogether. Instead, there should be a shift towards government acting directly through its own departments or, where it is judged that functions would be better performed by outside bodies, ministers could enter into an open and transparent contractual agreement with genuinely independent organisations. There should also be a presumption in favour of functions being performed by local authorities, where appropriate, to ensure accountability to local communities.

These recommendations would not only introduce greater clarity into the political process in Scotland but would also enhance the accountability of politicians to the electorate for their actions by forcing government to be open about what they were trying to achieve and how they proposed to achieve it.