It was interesting reading a press release from BIS yesterday about closing more quangos.
The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property policy (SABIP), SITPRO (Simplifying International Trade) and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Advisory Body (WAB) will all close in the next year. The British Shipbuilders Corporation will be abolished next year.
What was more interesting were the footnotes.
Within the main body of the press release it said:
The announcement comes as part of the Government’s commitment to reducing the number and cost of quangos and builds on the 13 Public Bodies closures that have already been announced.
In the footnotes it said and my emphasis.
The abolition, merger or termination of BIS funding of 13 Public Bodies was announced on 24 May 2010. Those bodies are: seven Regional Industrial Development Boards: UfI/Learndirect; Learning & Skills Improvement Service; Institute for Learning; Standards and Verification UK; IiP UK; and Hearing Aid Council.
There were three press releases on the 24th May relating to the cuts in funding:
None of these went into any detail about which Quangos would be cut, one of them said:
£80m from closing the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) and other savings in Department for Education quangos.
I have searched previous press releases from BIS and there is no detail on any of the savings to be made.
There is nothing (that I can find) on the LSIS or IfL websites about the cuts in funding.
Thanks to Bob and Seb for the noticing the footnote.
Edit: Screengrab in case it disappears…
…also frozen the page using FreezePage.