“Quango” is a widely used term for a public body that is not a government department but for which government ministers are ultimately accountable to parliament. The term, which stands for “quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation”, is often used pejoratively by critics.

The official term used by the UK government is “arm’s-length body” (ALB). These organisations are created to carry out specific public functions that are considered better delivered with a degree of independence from direct ministerial control, often for reasons of technical expertise, efficiency or impartiality.

Officially, ALBs are defined as a “specific category of central government public bodies that are administratively classified by the Cabinet Office.”

Arm’s-length bodies are responsible for a huge range of public services, from environmental regulation and cultural promotion to issuing driving licences and providing expert advice.

All arm’s-length bodies have a framework document which “sets out the ALBs purpose, describes the governance and accountability framework that applies between it and the sponsor department”.

Different types of public bodies

In May 2024, John Glen, a Cabinet Office minister, described the landscape of arm’s-length bodies as “sizable and complex”. There are three main types of ALBs.

Non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs)

This is the group most commonly thought of as “quangos.” An NDPB is not part of a government department and operates with its own board. NDPBs employ their own staff, who are not civil servants.

They work within a strategic framework set by ministers. They include a designated accounting officer and are accountable to parliament.

They include:

• Executive NDPBs: These carry out specific administrative, regulatory, or commercial functions. Examples include Great British Energy, Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive, and the Tate art galleries.
• Advisory NDPBs: These provide independent, expert advice to ministers on specific policy areas. Examples include the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Low Pay Commission and the Migration Advisory Committee.
• Tribunal NDPBs: These have jurisdiction in a specialised area of law, such as the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Executive agencies

An executive agency is a designated part of a government department, created to handle specific operational tasks. A significant proportion of the UK’s civil servants are employed by executive agencies as opposed to core government departments. They have less independence than NDPBs and are under the direct authority of their department’s minister.

Executive agencies are a product of the “Next Steps” initiative, launched in 1988, which aimed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government by “hiving off” operational functions to dedicated agencies.

The Next Steps report stated: “The central Civil Service should consist of a relatively small core of about 20,000 people engaged in the functions of servicing ministers and managing departments who will be the ‘sponsors’ of particular government policies and services.

“Responding to these departments will be a range of agencies employing their own staff who may or may not have the status of crown servants.”

By May 1991, 50 agencies had been established, accounting for 50% of the civil service. Between 60 and 70% of chief executives had been appointed through open competition, and around 35% were recruited from outside the civil service.

Today, the Next Steps initiative is seen as “one of the two or three key reform moments in the development of the civil service.” Examples of executive agencies include the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), the Met Office, and HM Prison and Probation Service.

Non-ministerial departments

These are government departments in their own right, but they are not headed by a minister. Instead, they are led by a board or chief executive who is directly accountable to parliament. Ministers do not have direct control over them.

Non-ministerial departments are staffed by civil servants. They are accountable to parliament through their sponsoring ministers. Examples include Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills), the Food Standards Agency (FSA), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Quangos: recent developments

In 2022/23, there were 302 administratively classified as arm’s-length bodies. Of these, 244 were non-departmental public bodies, 38 were executive agencies, and 20 were non-ministerial departments. Within the NDPB category, the majority were either executive NDPBs (118) or advisory NDPBs (114).

NHS England was noted as the largest ALB, receiving £159.3 billion in government funding.

In April 2025, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, wrote to all governments, calling on them to justify the existence of every quango. It was announced that, if a quango could not be justified, they would be “closed, merged, or have powers brought back into the department”.

It came after the government announced that NHS England would be brought back into the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

Keir Starmer, the prime minister, argued that the NHS should be overseen by politicians rather than an arm’s-length body.

The Labour government’s approach to quangos has been likened to the so-called “bonfire of the quangos” undertaken by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.

The 2010 ‘Bonfire of the Quangos’

A major review of public bodies was launched by the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in 2010. Widely dubbed the “bonfire of the quangos”, its stated aims were to reduce the number of public bodies, thereby increasing accountability and cutting public spending.

The Conservative Party’s 2010 general election manifesto included a commitment to abolish quangos “that do not perform a technical function or a function that requires political impartiality, or act independently to establish facts”.

The manifesto stated: “Under Labour, the quango state has flourished. Government figures show that there are over 700 unelected bodies spending £46 billion every year, but this does not even include the range of advisory bodies, public corporations, taskforces and regional government bodies that have sprung up under Labour.”

“We believe that ministers should be responsible for government policy, not unelected bureaucrats.”

In government, the policy was driven by the new minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, who argued that the landscape of public bodies had become bloated and confusing.

The new government launched a review of over 900 bodies, 679 quangos and 222 other statutory bodies.

In October 2010, the government announced that 192 public bodies would cease to operate. Their functions would either be brought back into government, devolved to local government, moved out of government or abolished altogether.

A further 118 would be merged down into 57 successor bodies. 171 bodies were cited as needing “substantial reform”.

Among those abolished entirely were the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and Cycling England.

Overall, under the plans, the 901 bodies would be reduced to 648.

Commenting on the changes, Maude said: “We know that for a long time there has been a huge hunger for change. People have been fed up with the old way of doing business, where the ministers they voted for could often avoid taking responsibility for difficult and tough decisions by creating or hiding behind one of these quangos.

“Today’s announcement means that many important and essential functions will be brought back into departments meaning the line of accountability will run right up to the very top where it always should have been.”

Several high-profile and long-standing organisations were scrapped as part of the process. These included the Audit Commission, which for nearly 30 years had been responsible for overseeing the financial health of local government in England, and the nine Regional Development Agencies, which had been created by the previous Labour government to drive economic growth in the English regions.

Additional resources

• Hansard (statement by Francis Maude) – Public Bodies Reform: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2010-10-4/debates/10101429000005/PublicBodiesReform
• Public Bodies Reform – Proposals For Change: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20121014230000/http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_191543.pdf