Government Could Axe Hundreds of Quangos to Cut Costs and Improve Efficiency

The decision comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that NHS England would be scrapped to cut bureaucracy and save money.

A street sign giving directions to Parliament Street and Whitehall in London, on Jan. 22, 2022. Yui Mok/PA Wire

The Cabinet Office has instructed all government departments to review every quango, warning they will be closed, merged, or brought back under direct control if their existence cannot be justified.

“The review will aim to drive out waste and inefficiency across Whitehall, reducing duplication and bureaucracy - saving the taxpayer money and cutting the cost of ‘doing government,'” Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden said in a statement on Monday.

Quangos, or quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, are taxpayer funded bodies which are not controlled by ministers. They include regulators like Ofcom and advisory bodies like the Migration Advisory Committee.

Those which have large policy functions could be brought under government control, meaning they will be accountable to the Cabinet secretary or departmental secretaries of state.

The Cabinet Office said some of these quangos, known officially as arms-length bodies (ALBs), will be unaffected and maintain ministerial distance, such as those which scrutinise government or protect the rule of law.

The move comes as the government looks to save money and after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced he would be axing NHS England to cut bureaucracy.

Efficiency and Duplication

In a bid to drive out inefficiency and duplication, the review will consider whether activities undertaken by the body are already being conducted by ministerial departments.

It will also look at whether a policy should have ministerial oversight.

McFadden said: “We are taking action to ensure decisions of national importance that affect everyone in this country are made by those who have been elected to do so.

“Only by fundamentally re-wiring the state, can we deliver our Plan for Change to secure Britain’s future and serve working people; kick-starting economic growth, rebuilding the NHS and strengthening our borders.”

The Cabinet Office said that all quangos should operate under the assumption that they will be affected unless they can demonstrate that they should exist as an independent body.

Unions React

Prospect union’s general secretary, Mike Clancy, said that any plans to merge or scrap quangos needs to include “clear objectives and rationale for doing so.”

He said those employed at ALBs do important work and have specialist knowledge that must not be lost in the reorganisation of departments.

In addition, Clancy said, “Many ALBs have advisory roles and important safety functions which require independence from central government, there must be clarity on how this would be maintained if organisations are merged.”

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said that any planned closures, mergers, or the bringing in-house of ALBs must include input from their members.

PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote said that while the union shares the government’s “desire to create a more coherent civil service under direct, democratic control,” any changes will require guarantees on job security, pay, and conditions.

NHS England Scrapped

Last month, Starmer announced that NHS England would be scrapped, bringing management of the NHS back under the Department for Health and Social Care.

He had said that an ALB should not be in control of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, adding he could not justify to the public that they should be paying for two layers of bureaucracy.

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London, on March 9, 2025. James Manning/PA Wire

Starmer had said: “Amongst the reasons we are abolishing it is because of the duplication.

“So, if you can believe it, we’ve got a communications team in NHS England, we’ve got a communications team in the health department of government; we’ve got a strategy team in NHS England, a strategy team in the government department. We are duplicating things that could be done once.

“If we strip that out, which is what we are doing today, that then allows us to free up that money to put it where it needs to be, which is the front line.”

Calls for UK DOGE

The potential scrapping of hundreds of quangos comes as questions have been raised over the spending of millions in taxpayers’ money on diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) projects abroad.

Since late last year, a group operating under the handle The Procurement Files on social media platform X has exposed DEI projects funded via the foreign aid budget and approved by successive Conservative and Labour governments.

Awards included £9,550,000 given in December 2024 to Cowater International to support “Accountability and Inclusion” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Another £575,000 was granted to the Ark Group to deliver advice to the Jordanian Armed Forces on its “Gender Mainstreaming Strategy.”

In response to the revelations, some Conservative and Reform politicians have called for the establishment of a department to cut government waste, mirroring the work being undertaken by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and the Department for Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the United States.