The Slight Singeing of the Quangos

Today the UK government will announce the creation of the Quango Immolation Authority, a quasi-autonomous government-funded agency that will look into ways of reducing the number of quangos in the UK.

Quangos were originally introduced into the UK’s system of government as a way of removing whole swathes of government, or semi-government, out of the reach of political interference and to stop politicians trying to mess with things (i.e. almost everything) they don’t understand.

However, with few natural auditing predators, and with politicians unwilling to cull anything that will divert blame for the inevitable governmental cock-ups away from themselves, the quangos soon spread to infest almost every area of the UK.

Left to itself, the Quango will just sit quietly producing reports and so forth that no-one ever reads whilst devouring vast swathes of government funding in order for it to grow, sometimes to an immense size. Despite having no apparent need even for it to exist, apart from a place of employment for the wives, husbands, partners, friends and relations of the politicians who first set it up, quangos seem almost indestructible. Destroy one and several more rise up to take its place, its staff, luxury office space and its expense accounts.

In the past, attempts to destroy quangos has resulting in them splitting into several smaller quangos and scurrying off into the dense undergrowth of governmental funding, there to gorge themselves all back to the around the same size as their original parent quango, thus leading to the current vast infestation of purposeless quangos now threatening to completely overwhelm this country.

Consequently, the government sees the creation of the – totally independent - Quango Immolation Authority as a way of reducing the number of quangos. However, the new head of the QIA has said that she sees the need for not just one, but several new QIAs. Each QIA should, she added, have the necessary expertise, staff, budget, and – quite possibly - purpose-built new office block in a prime central London location, each new QIA tasked with making sure one particular quango is not a waste of money and resources, and if it is, whether or not it should be split into several smaller quangos instead.

This way, the government believe, they will be able to divert the populace’s wrath at any future cock-up away from themselves completely, blaming either the quango itself for the cock-up, or the QIA for not doing more to prevent the quango from making the cock-up, thus ensuring the government suffers little or no potential electoral damage in consequence.