Quango quagmire

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:35:07 +0000

I've been drowning in a quango quagmire this week. Bogged down trawling through a long list of NDPBs - Non-Departmental Public Bodies as they're officially called - to select three worthy of inclusion in my mini series which ran this week. The idea was to find three typical, enlightening, but relatively low profile examples of the 192 which were being advertised as earmarked for abolition.

The first was fairly easy; the first to go - the Hearing Aid Council. Especially as outgoing chief executive Sandra Verkuyten used her experience to produce a handy guide to winding up a quango.

But what I found trawling through the rest was that a fair number of them are not really going at all. Check yourself (if you've already read the paper and there is nothing on TV).

The functions of around 30 quangos will be transferred to a committee of experts. OK they will no longer be non departmental public bodies but these committees will serve similar functions and still need some kind of funding.

And then there are two bodies which will be "declassified": The advisory committee on the government art collection and the advisory committee on national historic ships. It all sounds very cold war doesn't it? Will the organisations be telling all about closely guarded state secrets? Perhaps that the Cutty Sark was used to spy in Russian waters?

No that's not what declassified means. But finding out what it does mean proves rather more difficult. We asked the committees' parent body the department for culture, media sport. And were given a rather unenlightening reply: "It means the status of the Advisory Committee for National Historic Ships will change. It will no longer be an advisory NDPB."

I asked assistant producer Luke (I don't usually have an assistant but there were a lot of quangos to look at!) to go back and ask how the Advisory Committee for National Historic Ships would change as a result of being declassified.
"Its functions will either transfer to an existing organisation in the cultural sector, or remain as an organisation without advisory NDPB status, in such a way that continued support to the historic ships sector is ensured and that the necessary expertise on ship preservation and funding priorities is preserved."

We couldn't pin the government down on which option would go ahead but the director of national historic ships Martyn Heighton told us the body will remain, and has the same funding, the same staff and the same role as before. The difference is its committee will not be appointed by the government. So why change it? Well we were rather cynically told by one expert in public policy that it looks good to be seen to be cutting back on the UK's quangocracy.

But it's more serious if the Government is relying on achieving heavy reductions in public spending through this policy because, certainly in the case of the historic ships committee, it doesn't spend much money in the first place and it's hard to see how it will spend much less after declassification, than it does now.

Melanie Abbott is a reporter on You and Yours

Tempting offer from fraudster turned author

Wed, 05 May 2010 13:40:37 +0000

By Melanie Abbott
I've had a few interesting job offers in my time. But I've just received the first from a convicted fraudster who featured as part of the You and Yours' investigative strand Face the Facts.

Graham Templeton, who defrauded nearly two million euros from ex-pats living in the Dordogne, wants me to help him promote a book he is writing about the case.

In January we featured his activities as a financial advisor. He persuaded people who had retired to the Dordogne to invest money in a bond issued by Societe Generale. But a loop hole in French banking law meant he was able to pay the money into his own bank account simply by countersigning the cheques on the back. This practice was stopped in the UK in 2006 but still goes on in France.

One couple handed Templeton more than half a million pounds via a series of cheques. Another, who had sold a business to retire to France, gave him £450,000. After losing that money, they had to sell their house in France and are now living in a caravan.

Despite being convicted of the fraud Graham Templeton was allowed to go free because French prisons are overcrowded. But he has now been arrested and is serving his 20 month sentence in jail in Fresnes in France.

Last week I received a letter from him suggesting I might like to deal with him exclusively to promote his book. If it is published he says the money will go towards paying back his victims and writes that; "After reading the dull books of Archer I am sure it could be quite a good long haul read with interesting facts about prison life in France."

This letter follows an earlier missive in quite a different tone accusing me of harassing his family and "telling lies and ruining lives". I wrote back explaining I had not approached his family and that's when I received the offer.

Tempting as it is BBC editorial Guidelines say that relationships with an individual or organisations outside of the BBC must not compromise editorial impartiality and integrity, that our choice of partners won't bring the BBC into disrepute and that we don't promote or appear to endorse other organisations, products, services, views or opinions.

Somehow I don't think the controller of editorial policy will green light this particular opportunity.

Melanie Abbott is a producer on Face the Facts and a reporter on You and Yours
We want your suggestions for the next series of Face the Facts which returns on Thursday 15th July.
You & Yours is on BBC Radio 4 at 1200 weekdays. Listen to today's episode on the Radio 4 website.

BBC | Autumn Watch

Quango quagmire

Tempting offer from fraudster turned author