Gordon: Quangos are not "devolution"

Jock — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 22:37:19 +0000

The BBC and Times at least have picked up on this from "Hurricane" Gordon:

Mr Brown will seek to devolve power away from Whitehall

Gordon Brown will seek to devolve power away from central government if he becomes prime minister, he has told the BBC in an interview.

The "Bank of England independence" model, devolving policy from ministers, would let those "better able to manage, just get on with it", he said.

Earlier, it was revealed Mr Brown would consider giving day-to-day control of the NHS to an independent board.

Burning Our Money picks up on the differences between interest rate setting and the NHS.

I want to concentrate on semantics. Is an "independent board" not just another gigantic quango? One for the NHS would truly eclipse anything we've seen before, dwarfing even the Learning and Skills Council. But it's not "devolution" under any stretch of the imagination.

I can't imagine he'd get his party to believe that an "independent board" was anything other than a shadow board of directors getting ready to sell the rest of it off. And he won't get many others to believe that it's really devolution of power.

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Gordon: Quangos are not "devolution"