Streamlining quangos - A welcome consequence of recession

NOT so long ago, when Boyzone were boys rather than men facing middle age, the answer to more or less every social difficulty was to throw a quango at it.

There can hardly be an area of concern that does not have its very own corps of lobbyists filing reports that annually highlight some perpetual inadequacy in service provision or need for extra staff and funding.

Department of Finance figures show that the number of people employed in non-commercial semi-state bodies grew by more than 60% to 16,000 between 2000 and 2007. The number across the public sector has grown by more than 30% in that period.

As the extent of our economic difficulties becomes more apparent, non-commercial semi-state bodies — and their clients — must be wondering what the future might hold. The Combat Poverty Agency is the latest to feel the chill wind of “savings” and all the indications are that the agency, set up in 1986, is to close.

As there are 300,000 people categorised as consistently poor in Ireland it is to be hoped the agency is not in this position because it criticised the government.

This is not the first agency to feel the impact of ourstraitened circumstances and it is reassuring to see that unpleasant decisions are at least being contemplated.

However, it would be more reassuring if that exercise did not carry the standard public service caveat that “no redundancies are anticipated”.

This silliness was most infamously seen when the old health boards came under the wing of the HSE. Comfortingly, agency employees will be given roles in parent departments if they are not needed in new, merged entities. Many agency employees could make a valuable contribution to parent departments but many would not. It is this gold-plated guarantee that undermines the seriousness of this process and marks it apart from exercises undertaken daily in the private sector.

Already the staff of the Equality Authority, Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and Human Rights Commission have been told that the three agencies are to merge. Others facing merger proposals are the Rent Tribunal and the Private Residential Tenancies Board; the Dublin Transportation Authority and the Commission for Taxi Regulation; the Food Safety Authority and the Institute of Public Health; local offices of Enterprise Ireland and the county enterprise boards; the Local Government Computer Services Board and the Local Government Management Services Board.

Forfás and the National Consumer Agency may be subsumed into the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Undoubtedly, there are many more that might be streamlined, merged or subsumed without having an impact on how their services are delivered. It is especially hoped that that would be the case where the Combat Poverty Agency is concerned.

If there is a silver lining to the recession it is that we have to confront our excesses. If the recession forces a hard-nosed appraisal and imposes efficiencies in how the government does its business, then it is not all doom and gloom. If it removes a buffer zone between the government and the public; if it returns responsibility to where it properly rests then all the better.