Up in Flames

The phrase 'bonfire of the quangos' has had a lot of airing from all political parties in decades past. It seems to be the done thing with a new administration, to condemn all the previous government's quangos and then set up a new quango to investigate the fact that there are too many quangos.

All this proves is that if you read the word quango enough times it loses any meaning it may once have had. It is supposed to stand for quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation, but is generally used to label any public sector body that isn't a government department, a local council or a hospital. For variety, you can also try a qualgo, or quasi-autonomous local governmental organisation. I might have made that one up, though.

To date, the coalition government have set up the Office for Budget Responsibility, falling into the trap of setting up a new organisation in order to get rid of other ones. This is precisely how quangos proliferate so - ministers say they want to do something, and in order for the new thing to be announced with a fanfare, it must have a new organisation attached. Or an old one which has been renamed and restructured. I've heard this process called re-disorganisation, unsurprisingly.

At the present moment, though, cutting is the order of the day, and public sector organisations are dropping almost daily. I have naturally been taking a particular interest in those with offices in Cambridge.

Today's victim was the Government Office of the East of England, as eight regional government offices were abolished. The London one remains, incidentally, as CLG's accusations of inefficiency, ineffectivity, and unpopularity do not apply there, I can only assume. The Government Office of the East of England (GO-East) employs quite a few people in Cambridge. As does the East of England Regional Development Agency, which has two offices round here and has also been abolished.

In the case of both these organisations, it is not that their functions and thus their jobs are being moved or reorganised. The government has taken the view that their functions are just not needed, and their jobs likewise. Meanwhile, all local authorities are undertaking restructuring exercises; the current polite phrase for trying to shed people faster than natural wastage can achieve.

All this points to a rather worrying situation next year. Many highly-skilled, considerably experienced people will be searching for jobs, and I might well be among them. I've got a healthy CV, but that's not much help if I'm competing with 500 other candidates. Public sector job opportunities simply won't exist, so the private and third sectors will be inundated. On the one hand, I agree that some layers of bureaucracy were in need of slimming back. Moreover, the expertise being lost from the public sector could envigorate and influence the private and voluntary sectors. One the other hand, increased unemployment is inevitable. Where are we going to work?

There is an understandably high level of anxiety amongst local government employees at the moment. Everyone knows someone, who knows someone, who is seconded to someone who works in a government department and tells tales of policy mayhem. Nobody is certain that their job will exist next year, or whether their workload will be made irrelevant by tomorrow's policy announcement. Everyone wonders whether the Big Society means getting fired and then doing the same job as an unpaid volunteer. Confusion about localism abounds.

The fact is, most public sector workers don't really want to work in the private sector. Personally, I just don't care about profit. I want to be paid enough to live on, which I am. The prospect of a bonus won't make me work harder; an interesting new project will. I am motivated by a desire to try and understand how the world works and how to make it a better place. Even if I never make more than the most infinitesimal progress with either, at least it will have been worth getting up in the morning.

That makes me sound naïve and idealistic, but I'm not without pragmatism. I'd take an unsatisfactory job in order to pay the rent; I've been a cleaner before, that definitely lacked intellectual stimulation. Thinking about job opportunities over the next few years, I can imagine a couple...

Big Society Enforcement Officer. Being anti-social is no longer to be allowed; you are part of the Big Society, whether you like it or not. This might not be a paid job, but you'd probably get a uniform and a taser.

Local Opinion Assessor. True localism means understanding what local people think about everything, all the time. Someone needs to measure that opinion, using whatever means necessary.

More seriously, some occupations are needed even if the entire fabric of civilisation collapses. Plumbers, takeaways, bike repairs, doctors, and second hand shops perhaps. Cambridgeshire's high-tech cluster is doing very nicely despite the downturn, which is encouraging. And despite our moribund history in the sector, hopefully the UK can manage a few more jobs in renewable energy and other cleantech.

However it seems that the days of the quangocrat are numbered.