Chief execs and chairs of public bodies have warned that reviews of arm's-length bodies take place too rarely and are often too time consuming when they do happen.
Speaking to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee as part of its inquiry into public bodies – launched after the Cabinet Office announced a cross-government review of all public bodies in April – the leaders called for more regular and “lighter touch” reviews.
This latest review has asked departments to “demonstrate the necessity” of their ALBs, with the presumption that they will be closed, merged or have functions brought back into departments where they cannot provide “compelling justification”.
At the PACAC session, MPs asked the ALB chairs and chief execs – who also have roles at two member organisations: the Association of Chief Executives and the Public Chairs’ Forum – to share their experience of public body reviews.
Elysia McCaffrey, who is a chief executive at the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and separately a board member of ACE, a support network for senior management in government ALBs, said in her experience, “reviews can be very deep and lengthy”.
“It would be a benefit to have something that is lighter touch and more regular, that just examines that question of whether this body should still exist,” added McCaffrey, who had a long career in the civil service before leading the GLAA.
“If the answer is very obviously yes, then you move on to your next review. But at the moment, it feels like the reviews do not come along very often and when they do, there is a huge amount of work to do.”
Asked if this meant “less ‘Ofsted-ing’ and more continuous coaching and reviews of how organisations are functioning”, McCaffrey agreed.
The latest exercise follows previous major reviews of ALBs carried out over the last decade-and-a-half, all in the name of driving out waste and inefficiency and often given the moniker “bonfire of the quangos”.
The prime example of this was the coalition government’s review from 2010 to 2015, which reduced the number of UK public bodies by more than a third. This was followed by a “tailored review programme” that saw the number of ALBs identified by the Cabinet Office drop from 463 to 295 between 2016 and 2019. A further review followed in 2022, led by then-government efficiency minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, but the total number of ALBs has remained at a similar level.
There are currently 304 ALBs, as of the most recent update in 2024.
Kevin Fraser, who is chair of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales and of the Public Chairs’ Forum, a members' body for chairs and non-executive directors at ALBs, said: "All the chairs I have spoken to are all asking for some consistency about that review.
"We have been saying that the B side and the A side of the record... is that we want that regularity of reviews. There needs to be a set pattern around those reviews taking place… so that you can get that assurance around whether we should be here or not, and if we are here and we are needed, are we doing a good job for the public? That is not currently happening.”
Fraser said he is currently taking part in two reviews at the Youth Justice Board – a triennial review and the Cabinet Office-driven government-wide one – which he says has been “complex”.
“That leads to a challenge in relation to how those two reviews work together and understanding how they are going to produce the outcomes that they want to achieve,” he said.
“Ministers are working through that – just seeking directions on the outcome of those reviews at the moment – but we have been involved in the process and our views were sought.
“On the outcome, we are waiting to see what the ministers' thoughts are about that at the moment.”
Fraser also said there is "almost a contradiction” in that the “public narrative” is that there are too many public bodies and yet “the government, at this moment in time, are still setting up new arm’s-length bodies”. She noted the recent creation of the Independent Football Regulator and a new MoD body to run military housing.
"These are very small, niche organisations, but they have been set up to do specific roles," he said. "It is a way that the government can flex very quickly to bring in new talent and expertise in a particular area to do a job that they want to get done if there is not another way within their resources already to do that."
Fraser also criticised some of the language used around quangos.
“I have looked that word up a number of times, and it is mentioned as a pejorative term,” he said. “Why would you talk about 300,000 people who provide a public service in that way? Many go over and beyond in relation to delivery and care deeply about the service they provide.”
He added: “We all have a responsibility in how we talk about people who put themselves forward and how we shape that public narrative so that people understand what public bodies do.”