There's
nothing New Labour loves more than a good body.
Agencies,
Government units and 'action groups' are popping up everywhere, excreting
regulations, forms, surveys, New Labour lifestyle propaganda, and high
salaried jobs with baffling New Labour titles.
The
buzz words fly: 'Blue Sky Thinking', Mezzanine Analysis' 'Action', 'Delivery,'
'Inclusive','Sustainable Communities' and of course, 'Stakeholder', and
'multi-Stakeholder'.
It's
as if every dotcom management consultant had found a job dreaming up pointless
things to do in Government.
New
Labour has created 861,000 feather bedded jobs in the public sector.
The
Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit
"In
its first year, the Delivery Unit set the delivery agenda and in
Year 2 it established delivery disciplines across Whitehall. During Year
3 the Unit will accelerate and intensify the drive for results."
The
unit employes around 40 delivery specialists and has advertised for 'Joint
Action Leaders' on salaries of £70,000
The
Prime Minister's Delivery Unit
The British Potato Council
"The British Potato Council is all about Improving Competitiveness
and Increasing Usage of GB potatoes."
Funded by a compulsory levy on business.
A report
by the Centre for Policy Studies branded it the most useless quango
in Britain, adding:
'That such a body should exist with a full complement of 60 staff due
to Government legislation in 1997 is surprising. If such an organisation
was necessary, it should be voluntary."
The British Potato
Council
The
Chewing Gum Action Group
"The
Chewing Gum Action Group is a multi-stakeholder group set up by Defra
ministers which includes chewing gum manufacturers, ENCAMS, the Local
Government Association, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES),
and Chartered Institute of Waste Management."
Defra
press release on the Chewing Gum Action Group
The
Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit
"...providing
the Prime Minister and Government departments with a capacity to analyse
major policy issues and design strategic solutions."
Publishes
sociology papers and documents such as 'A
futurologist's tool box' as well as studies which duplicate the work
of ministries (especially the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister).
Strategy
Unit - a timeline
The
Prime Minister's Strategy Unit
Security
Industry Authority
We
exist to manage the licensing of the private security industry as set
out in the Private Security Industry Act 2001. We also aim to raise standards
of professionalism and skills within the private security industry and
to promote and spread best practice.
Regulates
bouncers (door supervisors) and provides training for wheel
clampers (vehicle immobolisers).
The
Security Industry Authority
Ofcom
"Ofcom
exists to further the interests of citizen-consumers as the communications
industries enter the digital age."
Stephen
Glover (The
Spectator's Media Studies Column ) writes :
"Ofcom
opened for business on 29 December 2003 with a spanking new office and
an enormous staff. The first thing we learnt was that the regulator had
awarded more than 70 of its staff contracts worth more than £100,000
a year in pay and perks. This was significantly in excess of Ofcom’s
earlier estimates. Evidently this new arm of the state will be quite a
little gravy train. Lord Currie, the chairman, and, it so happens, a good
friend of Gordon Brown’s, will be paid £133,000 a year for
a four-day week. Stephen Carter, the regulator’s chief executive,
receives £250,000 a year."
Ofcom
e-Government
Unit (formally the e-Envoy)
“Ensuring
that IT supports the business transformation of Government"
The
Office of the e-Envoy (OEE), was formed in 1999 at the height
of dotcom madness. Its job was to promote internet use! As if AOL
needed some help from New Labour.
The
e-Government Unit which replaced it in 2005 focuses on getting Whitehall
online.
The
Register - e-envoy prepares to log-off
e-Government
Unit
Central
Sponsor for Information Assurance
"The CSIA provides a central focus for information assurance
in promoting the understanding that it is essential for government and
business alike to maintain reliable, secure and resilient national information
systems."
Central
Sponsor for Information Assurance
Office for Fair Access
“The
Office for Fair Access (OFFA) is an independent, non departmental
public body which aims to promote and safeguard fair access to higher
education for under-represented groups in light of the introduction of
variable tuition fees in 2006-07. OFFA is led by the Director of Fair
Access.”
This Unit
has been dubbed 'off-toff' for its aim of culling the numbers of public
school boys and girls who make it to university.
Guardian:
'Open access' universities policy backfires
Guardian:
Clarke outlines remit for access regulator
Office
for Fair Access
Also see
a related body, Action
for Access
The Food Standards Agency
"The
Food Standards Agency is an independent food safety watchdog set up by
an Act of Parliament in 2000 to protect the public's health and consumer
interests in relation to food."
The FSA employs
around 550 people and costs £140 million a year to run.
It spends
money devising interactive
games on its eatwell web site.
It has a
regulatory role including 'novel foods' :
Example:
Saskatoon
berries
May 2004: Application from Prairie Lane Ltd for an opinion on the equivalence
of saskatoon berries to blueberries. Rejected
June 2004.
Saskatoon
berries have been eaten in Canada for many years
The
Daily Telegraph: The FSA investigates the possibility that sheep droppings
can contaminate fruit on trees.
The FSA's
"Racial
Equality Scheme and Action Plan" proposes a "profiling
exercise to identify all the cultural and religious issues relating to
food".
It was too
preoccupied with other things to react promptly to the latest food sensation,'The
Great Worcester Sauce Scare,' of February 2005 in which indian boot polish
colouring (Sudan 1) appeared in many foods.
Food
Standards Agency
Government Office for London
"
The Government Office for London delivers policies and programmes in the
London region on behalf of nine central Government Departments.
It has a programme budget of £3 billion for 2004/05, of which the
majority, over £2.5 billion, is grant given to the Greater
London Authority and its functional bodies, Transport
for London and the London Development Agency."
"GOL’s current staff numbers are 325 (or 320 full time
equivalents taking into account part-time workers), after dipping
from over 400 to 240 after the formation of the GLA."
As
if the Mayor for London and the Greater London Authority and the various
boroughs did not provide enough bureaucrats for one city.
Similar
offices exist for eight other regions.
Government
Office for London
The Countryside Agency
The
Countryside Agency is changing: as a result of Defra's Rural Strategy
published in July 2004. From 1 April 2005 we will:
Are You Disappointed With Local Relationships? You Can Find Your Love In The Other Country With Our International Online Dating Service FirstClickFriend.com. | Sing Up Now And Get Your Extra Money With Our New Pay Per Profile Affiliate Program | We Have The Biggest Collection Of Funny Riddles For You To Laugh On Funny-Jokes-Portal.com
*
establish a distinctive new body to act as a rural advocate, expert adviser
and independent watchdog, with a particular focus on disadvantage;
* work with our partners, English Nature and the Rural Development Service,
regionally and nationally, across our landscape, access and recreation
remit. We will bring together our activities to improve services for customers,
work effectively with partners and contribute to sustainable development
as we move towards a new integrated agency to be formed following primary
legislation;
* transfer most of our current so cio-economic delivery functions to Regional
Development Agencies (RDAs) and Defra for delivery through Government
Offices.
Judging
by this New Labour waffle, it's not sure what it's going to be doing in
future. New Labour's chief countryside policy was to ban foxhunting.
The
Countryside Agency is funded by the Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs (Defra). With an annual budget of around £100
million, we have over 600 countryside specialists and support staff in
our Cheltenham and London headquarters and offices in every region.
Founded
1999
The
Countryside Agency
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Formerly
the Lord Chancellor's Department.
"We
are responsible in government for upholding justice, rights and democracy."
See
New Labour Human Rights Scandals
Department
for Constitutional Affairs
The Environment Agency
We employ
over 10,000 people working in diverse areas such as flood defence, pollution
control, town planning, farming and waste. Our area of responsibility
covers all of England and Wales and we work closely with local communities
to achieve results.
Our activities
range from influencing Government policy and regulating major industries
nationally, right through to day-to-day monitoring and clean up operations
at a local level.
Was launched
under John Major in 1996 and has grown and grown under New Labour. Always
advertising jobs in The Guardian.
Funded by
Government grants (25%) and charges on business and local councils
(75%).
The
Environment Agency
The
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
This
is bruiser Prescott's bloated behemoth.
It's like a suped-up 1980's loony-left council on a nation-wide scale,
with powers ranging over regional administration and housing.
"Our
aim is to create prosperous, inclusive and sustainable communities for
the 21st century."
"ODPM
is responsible for around 6,500 staff, including 1,800 in its four
agencies and some 2,700 in the nine Government Offices for the Regions."
Its buzz phrase ad nauseam is 'sustainable communities' which means a
Five
Year Plan for building houses over the SE.
Or as Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee puts it in its report,
Housing
Policy Conflicts with Green Rhetoric.
“The
Government’s housing policy is an alarming example of disjointed
thinking in an area where joined-up policy is crucial."
ODPM also creates new tiers of local government, but recently local
people have not been so enthusiastic about paying for it.
The ODPM is constantly setting up sub-units some of which are listed below
and are indicated by (Prescott).
The
Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
The
National Community Forum (Prescott)
The
National Community Forum is a bold experiment in trying to get the voices
of local people heard in the corridors of power. Launched in January 2002,
the Forum is made up of 22 local activists who come from a diverse range
of backgrounds and work on neighbourhood renewal issues in deprived areas.
National
Community Forum
The
Regional Coordination Unit (Prescott)
The
RCU was established in April 2000, in response to the Performance
and Innovation Unit (PIU) Report: Reaching Out:
The role of Central Government at Regional and Local Level.
The
unit oversees numerous Area Based Initiatives (ABIs). One of
its own
papers admits:
"As well as the sheer number of such programmes, and their overlapping
boundaries, their different administrative arrangements can cause considerable
unnecessary work for local authorities and other bodies.
Regional
Coordination Unit
The Regional Policy Unit (Prescott)
'Provide
for effective devolved decision-making within a framework of national
targets and policies.'
In
other words to set up to create regional assemblies that will put up the
cost of local government. Its plans have not been going so well recently:
"On
4 November 2004, a proposal to establish an elected regional assembly
was turned down by voters in the North East in a referendum on regional
government. Turnout for the referendum was almost 48%, with 22% voting
in favour and 78% voting against the proposal."
"
The Deputy Prime Minister confirmed that postponed referendums in the
North West and Yorkshire & the Humber would now not take place.
"However,
the Government continues to have a clear policy to decentralise power
and improve performance through reform in local government and strengthening
all the English regions."
The
Urban Policy Unit (Prescott)
"Our
aim is to drive forward the Deputy Prime Minister's sustainable communities'
agenda."
The
Urban Policy Unit
Social
Exclusion Unit (Prescott)
"We
believe that everyone should share in the nation's prosperity. We have
made progress towards ending post-code poverty. But some communities are
still suffering from the consequences of years of neglect.
"This
settlement allows us to take forward the vital agenda of creating sustainable
communities and a better life for all our people." John Prescott,
Deputy Prime Minister, commenting on the Spending Review, July 12 2004
The
Social Exclusion Unit
Equality
and Diversity Unit (Prescott)
Example
of their work
Local
Government Strategy Unit (Prescott)
Our
aim is to improve delivery and value for money of local services through
implementing Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA), engaging
with Authorities in improvement planning, negotiating and monitoring Local
PSA agreements, providing a package of freedoms and flexibility, developing
capacity building programmes and supporting the electronic delivery of
services.
The
Local Government Strategy Unit
The
West Northamptonshire Urban Development Corporation (UDC)
and many similar (Prescott)
and many similar
"‘to
drive the growth and regeneration of Northampton, Daventry and Towcester.’
Its
chair, Keith Barwell, is paid £44,528 per year for 2 days per week.
