Nicola Smith
The term ‘quango‘ is a euphamism – non-departmental public bodies carry out a range of essential work across Government and cuts will have as large an impact on delivery here as they would anywhere else – in areas including education, equalities and regional development.
Today’s announcement suggests that £270 million will be cut from Regional Development agencies. This appears to be part of the £600 million will be cut from ‘quangos’ – with rumours suggesting that organisations including the QCA and the Young Person’s Learning Agency are also in line for severe cuts or abolition and confirmation that the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency BECTA will be closed.
The Chairman and Chief Executive have said:
Becta is a very effective organisation with an international reputation, delivering valuable services to schools, colleges and children. Our procurement arrangements save the schools and colleges many times more than Becta costs to run. Our Home Access programme will give laptops and broadband to over 200,000 of the poorest children.
Update: Other possible cuts include a £1million cut for the School Food Trust, and significant cuts for the QCA (whose future apparently remains under review). PA are also reporting that £16 million is to be cut from the National College, £15 million will be cut from the Children’s Workforce Development Council and that the Training and Development Agency for Schools is losing £30 million from its budget.
We will report here as further detail on the ‘quango’ cuts becomes available.
Comment made by MConnor on Jul 1st 2010 at 1:30 pm:
Garry
Do you resent having to be qualified to be an accountant and having to belong to an accounting body to practice?
PS
If you have a PGCE, you are not one of the “unqualified …. pre 2001 mob”
Comment made by Sceptic on Jul 1st 2010 at 8:56 pm:
I shall have to come clean. I am one of the pre 2001 mob. I am very well qualified though. I’ve got the full monty of subject specialist and professional qualifications, further post-graduate educational studies, vocational qualifications and experience in private industry, years of “observation of teaching and learning”, leadership of moderation and training sessions, curriculum leadership experience, exam marking and curriculum design and, heavens, I nearly forgot, teaching experience as well. Perhaps these credentials allow me to make some critical judgements on a body whose power emanates entirely from state legislation. If membership of the IfL is a condition of employment, it is very hard to see how it can be argued that membership of said body wasn’t imposed (see MarkyD’s comment). Of course it was imposed. I don’t want to belong to it. I am forced to do so. I have always been keen on my professional development. I managed to accomplish these things without the IfL’s stewardship of my learning.
I am also rather wary of the link provided by MConnor to the Facebook page. It does not seem to me to be a disinterested group. It has 442 people who ‘like this’ (no possibility on Facebook of registering ‘don’t like this’) – a mammoth number of fans given institutional membership around the 200,000 mark – and its Wall seems to constitute mainly of feeds from the IfL itself. Could it be that this site was set up by the IfL?
Having said that, I am pleased to see that the Discussion Board on the Facebook site has a topic entitled ‘Abolish the IfL’ and one of the posters provides a link to this very forum. I am pleased to have set this discussion in motion. More comment is welcome.
Comment made by Garry on Jul 3rd 2010 at 9:43 am:
Re MConnor comment,
That is just the point, I do NOT have to be a member of a Chartered Institute to practice accountancy so why should I HAVE to belong to a quango to practice teaching??
Comment made by I can Do on Jul 5th 2010 at 10:22 pm:
Yes, just what you need..yet ANOTHER QUANGO that has next to no experience in doing what ever it is that is being taught. Add to that all the hangers-on that write yet more reports that make no difference or sense to those who are actually doing the job.
The old adage holds true, namely “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach”