Bonfires and barbecues:coalition governance and the politics of Quango reform

Abstract

The use of arm's-length bodies to deliver certain services, to regulate certain sectors or to assume responsibility for particularly salient political issues is neither new in historical terms or a feature unique to the UK in comparative terms. What is particularly distinctive, however, is the Coalition Government's attempts since 2010 to reduce the number of ‘quangos’ while also strengthening the capacity of the core executive and sponsor departments to control and co-ordinate this dense and fragmented sphere of delegated governance. Drawing upon the findings of the first research project to analyse the current Public Bodies Reform Agenda, this article provides an account of the ‘filling-in’ of the ‘hollowing out’. It argues that when viewed through a historical lens, the Coalition Government has adopted a distinctive approach to ‘the quango problem’.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2014.882776
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Sociology and Policy
Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Contemporary British History on 6/2/14, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13619462.2014.882776
Uncontrolled Keywords: hollowing-out,quangos,delegation,accountability,governance,filling-in
Publication ISSN: 1743-7997
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2024 08:05
Date Deposited: 27 May 2015 13:25
Full Text Link: http://www.tand ... 462.2014.882776
Related URLs:
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2014
Published Online Date: 2014-02-06
Authors: Flinders, Matthew
Dommett, Katharine
Tonkiss, Katherine (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-0671-3357)

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Version: Accepted Version


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