Aquango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization[1]) is an organization to which a government hasdevolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies. Theacronym is derived from the shortening of "quasi-NGO", where NGO is the abbreviation for anon-government organization.[2]
As its original name suggests, a quango is a hybrid form of organization, with elements of both NGOs andpublic sector bodies. Although originating in the United States,[1] the term is primarily used in theUnited Kingdom and, to a lesser degree, other countries in thecore and middle Anglosphere.
In the UK, the term quango covers different "arm's-length" government bodies, including "non-departmental public bodies" (NDPBs),non-ministerial government departments, andexecutive agencies.[3]
In Canada, quangos are referred to as 'Crown Corporations' or simply 'Crown corps'. As of May 2021 there were 45 Crown corps owned by the Canadian federal government, however many more are owned by each of the provincial governments. Notably electricity providers such as the 'Saskatchewan Power Corporation' a.k.a. SaskPower owned by the province of Saskatchewan and 'Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board' a.k.a. Manitoba Hydro owned by the province ofManitoba.
Saskatchewan is notable for the ubiquity of provincial crown corps with most styled with the prefixSask- followed by the primary service. The larger Saskatchewan Crown corps have their own Saskatchewan minister with all Saskatchewan Crown corps owned by the Crown Investment Corporation of Saskatchewan which in turn is owned by the provincial government. Some of the most notable Saskatchewan Crown corps are as follows:
In 2006, there were 832 quangos in the Republic of Ireland – 482 at national and 350 at local level – with a total of 5,784 individual appointees and a combined annual budget of €13 billion.[4]
The Irish majority party,Fine Gael, had promised to eliminate 145 quangos should they be the governing party in the 2016 election.[5] Since coming to power they have reduced the overall number of quangos by 17. This reduction also included agencies which the former government had already planned to remove.
In New Zealand, quangos are referred to as 'Crown Entities', with the shift occurring in the 1980s during a period ofneoliberalisation of the state sector.[6] In 1996, there were an estimated 310 quangos in New Zealand, and an additional 2690 school Boards of Trustees (similar to the American model ofboards of education).[7] Other quangos from 1996 include: "...63 Crown Health Enterprises, 39 tertiary education institutions, 21 Business development boards and 9 Crown Research Institutes. But there were also 71 single crown entities with services ranging from regulatory (e.g. Accounting Standards Review Board, Takeovers Panel) to quasi-judicial (e.g. Police Complaints Authority, Race Relations Conciliator), to the arts (e.g. New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, NZ Film Commission), to social welfare (e.g. Housing Corporation of NZ) and to substantial enterprises (e.g. Auckland International Airport Ltd)."[7]
By 2003, the number of quangos had increased to an estimated 400 (excluding Board of Trustees), with more than 3,000 people sitting on governance boards that were appointed by successive governments.[8] This appointment of people to governance boards has been widely criticised by political parties and political commentators as a form ofcronyism.[8][9][10][11]
In 2010, there were 2,607 crown entities (including Board of Trustees) with annual expenditure of $32 billion in 2009/2010.[12]
Despite a 1979 "commitment" from theConservative Party to curb the growth of non-departmental bodies, their numbers grew rapidly throughout that party's time in power during the 1980s.[13] One UK example is theForestry Commission, which is a non-ministerial government department responsible for forestry inEngland.
The Cabinet Office 2009 report on non-departmental public bodies found that there were 766 NDPBs sponsored by the UK government. The number had been falling: there were 827 in 2007 and 790 in 2008. The number of NDPBs had fallen by over 10% since 1997. Staffing and expenditure of NDPBs had increased. They employed 111,000 people in 2009 and spent £46.5 billion, of which £38.4 billion was directly funded by the government.[14]
Use of the term quango is less common in the United States, although many US bodies, includinggovernment-sponsored enterprises, operate in the same fashion.[15]Paul Krugman has stated that the USFederal Reserve is, effectively, "what the British call a quango... Its complex structure divides power between the federal government and the private banks that are its members, and in effect gives substantial autonomy to a governing board of long-term appointees."[16]
Other U.S.-based organizations that fit the original definition of quangos include theNational Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), theNational Endowment for Democracy, theFederal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and theFederal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac).
By the broader definition now used in the United Kingdom, there are hundreds offederal agencies that might be classed as quangos.
TheIndonesian Ulema Council is considered a quango for its status as an independent, mass organization-like public organization but supported and financed by the state while keeping its status as independent organization outside the Indonesian state organizational system in other side.[17][18][19] As a quango, MUI is empowered to issue religious edicts (fatwas) comparable to state laws which are binding upon the Indonesian Muslim population and can exert influence upon state policies, politics, and the economy due to its status and prestige.[18]
The term "quasi non-governmental organization" was created in 1967 by Alan Pifer of the US-basedCarnegie Foundation, in an essay on the independence and accountability of public-funded bodies that are incorporated in the private sector. This essay got the attention of David Howell, a Conservative M.P. in Britain, who then organized an Anglo-American project with Pifer, to examine the pros and cons of such enterprises. The lengthy term was shortened to theacronymQUANGO (later lowercased quango) by a British participant to the joint project, Anthony Barker, during one of the conferences on the subject.[20]
It describes an ostensibly non-governmental organization performing governmental functions, often in receipt of funding or other support from government.[21] By contrast, traditional NGOs mostly get their donations or funds from the public and other organizations that support their cause.
An essential feature of a quango in the original definition was that it should not be a formal part of the state structure. The term was then extended to apply to a range of organisations, such asexecutive agencies providing (from 1988) health, education and other services. Particularly in the UK, this occurred in a polemical atmosphere in which it was alleged that proliferation of such bodies was undesirable and should be reversed. In this context, the original acronym was often replaced by abackronym spelt out as "quasi-autonomous national government organisation, and often rendered as 'qango'[22] This spawned the related acronymqualgo, a 'quasi-autonomouslocal government organisation'.[23]
The less contentious termnon-departmental public body (NDPB) is often employed to identify numerous organisations with devolved governmental responsibilities. Examples in the United Kingdom include those engaged in the regulation of various commercial and service sectors, such as theWater Services Regulation Authority.
The UK government's definition in 1997 of a non-departmental public body or quango was:
A body which has a role in the processes of national government, but is not a government department or part of one, and which accordingly operates to a greater or lesser extent at arm's length fromMinisters.[24]
The Times has accused quangos of bureaucratic waste and excess.[25] In 2005, Dan Lewis, author ofThe Essential Guide to Quangos, claimed that the UK had 529 quangos, many of which were useless and duplicated the work of others.
The term has spawned the derivativequangocrat; theTaxpayers' Alliance faulted a majority of "quangocrats" for not making declarations of political activity.[26]
