The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, southwest London, is one of the UK’s cultural treasures. A globally-renowned UNESCO World Heritage Site, the gardens’ unique architectural and botanical attractions draw thousands of visitors a year. It is also an arm’s-length body (ALB) of the government – and the way that this relationship is managed is putting the Gardens’ future at risk, according to a report by the Science and Technology Select Committee. The problems highlighted by the Committee are reflective of enduring problems in the way arm’s-length government is managed in the UK which we discuss in our new report, Out of the Ashes.
According to the select committee, the Whitehall department responsible for ‘sponsoring’ the Gardens – the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – frequently takes financial decisions that should instead be taken by Kew’s management. This prevents Kew from managing its affairs in a long-term strategic way and is, in the committee’s opinion, a “recipe for failure”. The committee draws comparisons with the Natural History Museum, sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which it states is “thriving, with far fewer restrictions on its budget from Government”. Both Kew and the Natural History Museum share ‘Executive Non-Departmental Public Body’ (NDPB) status; but as the Select Committee points out, this does not ensure that they receive equal treatment from government.
The Palm House in spring, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
As our report points out, this situation is not uncommon. In 2010, the Institute estimated that the UK had 11 different ‘types’ of arm’s-length body, of which Executive NDPBs were one. The diversity of this landscape led to confusion about roles and responsibilities between organisations, and to extreme variation in the way that departments managed their relationship with their ALBs. Organisations which share the same government ‘classification’ – and so are in theory the same type of organisation – are treated differently depending on which department is responsible for them.
The diversity of bodies, coupled with the variation in how they are managed by Whitehall, means that financial and political accountability is often unclear to ministers as well as to officials. Early last year, Defra and the Environment Agency found themselves at the heart of a row about who was responsible for decisions about spending on flood prevention. Such confusion in turn impacts on public trust in ALBs; to many voters (and indeed many politicians) ALBs represent an undemocratic sink-hole of public money. The spectacle of officials and ministers passing the blame for decisions between one another does little to reassure the public that their taxes are spent well.
These suspicions make ALBs an easy political target. Before the 2010 election, all the main parties expressed a desire to reform arm’s-length government, hoping to find low-hanging fruit in the battle to cut public expenditure. Out of the Ashes explores the Coalition’s public bodies reform programme and evaluates its impact. We conclude that while progress has undoubtedly been made in many areas, if the next government is to truly reform ALBs, it must go further. We recommend that the process for reviewing whether bodies are fit for purpose and whether they should remain at arm’s-length be refined and expanded; that a new ‘classification’ system be implemented for ALBs, simplifying the landscape; that relations between departments and ALBs be improved by strengthening sponsorship capability; and that select committees play a greater role in appointments to senior posts in ALBs.
So far, the story of public bodies reform is of an opportunity partially taken, with some changes left too late in the parliamentary term to have any impact this side of the general election. The Cabinet Office has recently embarked on a review of how the government classifies ALBs, which is welcome; but sustaining the momentum on ALB reform in a new parliament will be challenging. Those in power after May will doubtless have a full policy agenda, but they should also make the time to take this review forward – finally closing the book on ALB reform, and setting the government’s relations with ALBs on a stable footing.
