Environment Secretary scraps range of quangos
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed today that it is to axe a range of quangos.
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said she would:
- Withdraw funding from the Sustainable Development Commission
- Abolish the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
- Abolish the Inland Waterways Advisory Council
- Abolish the Commons Commissioners, and
- Abolish the Agricultural Wages Board, the 15 Agricultural Wages Committees, the 16 Agricultural Dwelling House Advisory Committees and the Committee on Agricultural Valuation.
The minister insisted that the government was committed to being “the greenest government ever”.
She said: “Together with Chris Huhne (Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change), I am determined to play the lead role in driving the sustainability agenda across the whole of government and I am not willing to delegate this responsibility to an external body.
“The effective delivery of public services is essential and I am committed to increasing the transparency and accountability of Defra’s public bodies and to reducing their number and costs.”
The SDC is jointly owned by the government and the devolved administrations.
Spelman said: “We will continue to liaise closely with the SDC’s partners and will work with business, civil society, local communities, universities and internationally, to help deliver sustainable development together. The House of Commons environmental audit committee will provide powerful democratic scrutiny of the government’s work in this area.”
Will Day, chair of the SDC, said it was "deeply disappointed" at the Environment Secretary's decision. "Our work has delivered efficiency savings totalling many times what the organisation has cost the government, and contributed towards much greater sustainability in government – both in the way it runs itself and the decisions it takes about our wellbeing and our future," he argued.
Day said the SDC would await "with interest" the details of how a degree of cross-government independent scrutiny is to be achieved. "However, what is important now is that the objectives we have championed – of properly balancing the needs of society, the economy and the environment as we respond to the pressing challenges ahead – find their way to the heart of all government decision making," he added.
The Environment Secretary had already announced the abolition of the Commission for Rural Communities and the merger of Animal Health and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency.
