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Kent Council reply

5 March 2010

In a pamphlet written by the Council they called for the abolition of the Highways Agency.

You can read the full proposals in our previous news posting. In reply we wrote the Council.  

The council have now written back to us - that letter has been reproduced below:

 

Re: Bold steps for radical reform

Thank you for your letter of 2nd February 2010.

You raise a number of interesting points and, as a discussion paper, I am glad that Bold Steps has been read with such interest by yourself and by your colleagues. I doubt that we are going to agree on some of the fundamental issues that are raised in paper.

As I am sure you are aware, the scale of the challenge to public sector finances (both central government and local government) over coming decade will be immense. Only by increasing working across organisational boundaries, pooling resources and thinking radically can we all survive in the long term without overseeing deterioration in quality and quantity of all front line services. Our Total Place Pilot in Kent has shown what savings can be achieved when public services are more integrated at a local level, and Bold Steps takes the Total Place concept forwards and asks some difficult and challenging questions about whether the structures through which we run public services can meet that challenge.

I must point out that the report actually says “The type of quangos we believe should be abolished” and therefore the list in Bold Steps is indicative not definitive. The report goes on to say that “with many of the functions transferred to local authority control” but this does not necessarily mean all functions. The intent is to stimulate the debate about what should be managed at a national level and what can appropriately be devolved to a more local level.

Whilst I don’t want to get into a technical discussion over the term quango I doubt that most people perceive there to be a difference between departmental executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies. What is agreed by the vast majority of public policy commentators is that there are too many of these bodies in the UK spending too much public money with little or no real accountability. Often it is unclear what actual benefit they bring to local communities.

There is a generic statement about quangos, non-departmental public bodies and executive agencies, not a specific criticism of the Highways Agency per se, and neither is the report an attempt to criticise the very hard work that you and your members do on a day-to-day basis to support and manage the strategic road network.

Yours sincerely

Paul Carter
Leader of Kent County Council
 

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