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November 2010
Business Quangos Bite Dust
Regional Development Agencies are among the business-related quangos that face the axe or other changes in a government shake-up.
A Cabinet Office announcement on 14 October confirmed a previous announcement that the eight agencies will be abolished, with those functions to be retained transferred to central or local government and others.
A total of 192 quangos (quasi-autonomous non-government organisations) will cease to be public bodies and their functions will be brought back into government, devolved to local government, moved out of government or abolished altogether
Other business-linked organisations affected in the shake-up include:
- Competition Commission: government will consult in the new year on a merger with the competition functions of the Office of Fair Trading
- Construction Industry Training Board: consideration to be completed by November 2010 of transferring body and functions to private sector status
- Copyright Tribunal: subject to final agreement, jurisdiction of the tribunal to be transferred into the Ministry of Justice tribunal service
- UK Commission for Employment and Skills: a review is to be completed by the end of the year of the commission’s core functions and the most appropriate structure to deliver a simplified skills landscape.
The government also plans to merge 118 bodies down to 57 and to retain and substantially reform a further 171. A total of 380 organisations will be retained.
