Bonfire of the Quangos!

There's an interesting blog on the Telegraph website which names a number of lobby groups who are all paid for from the public purse. This is the list from the Telegraph;

Bath & North East Somerset Racial Equality Council
Black & Minority Ethnic Carers Support Service
Camden & Westminster Refugee Training Partnership (C&WRTP)
Consortium of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender voluntary and Community Organisations
Gypsy/Travel Education & Information Project North East (GTEIP)
MOSAIC Black & Mixed Parentage Family Group
National Council for One Parent Families|Gingerbread
North Yorkshire Black and Minority Ethnic Strategy Board
Pakistan Community Association and Multicultural Advice Centre

Now, I ask you. Do any of these really represent a good use of public money? And should the public, through their taxes, be expected to pay money to lobby groups such as these without having any say in their funding?

I think not. The great problem we have in this country is the way the 'third sector' and lobby groups has expanded under Labour since 1997. For instance, in 1997 the amount of funding given to quangos was £97billion a year (which was already too high in my humble opinion). Fast forward 12 years and under this Labour government and we now see that the amount of taxpayers' money given to these unelected and unaccountable quangos has risen to approximately £200billion a year.

That's £200 billion pounds of my money and your money being handed out to various groups and institutions who we are funding, who then in turn use that money to put pressure on the government to change laws that don't need changing in the first place!

It's like some self-perpuating money fest all paid for by you and me, and that has got to stop.

My own personal favourite is the Milk Development Council (MDC), a publicly-funded quango set up to promote the interests of dairy farmers. In 1997 the MDC employed just four people (and even that seems like too may to me). So it should come as no surprise that in 2009 the MDC has somehow now morphed into an organisation that requires 44 people to be employed at the taxpayers' expense.

Why???? Are we drinking more milk than we did in 1997 due to the increased and enlarged presence of the MDC? Are our dairy farmers faring any better due to the engorged MDC?

Well, there's no doubt that the dairy farmers of the UK are certainly paying for the profligacy of this Labour government in terms of more red tape, higher taxes and harsher trading conditions so you would have to say no.

The plain fact of the matter is that the next Conservative government MUST get a handle on the growth of third sector and taxpayer funded quangos who are all suckling on the taxpayers' tit. Just scaling back the cost of the unelected and unaccountable back to 1997 levels would give the country an expenditure saving of approx £100billion a year, which would almost certainly give us a roadmap out of the current recession and put the public finances on a sounder footing.

This must be a priority if/when the next Conservative government is elected. It's time to bite the bullet and put the taxpayer first in favour of these self-interest pressure groups.