In 'quango' Bonanza

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By Pru Chamberlayne The material forces corrupting leaders of the workers' movement by drawing them into state administration is nowhere clearer than in the furore over 'QUANGOS' (QuasiAutonomous National Government Organisations).

Marx described the process whereby incorporation of working class leaders into state functions 'wears them down by turning them into officials, wins them through bribery, flattery, engults them I in work', perverts them through a philistine life' 900 Quangos The British ruling class learned early to rely on a lieutenant class to control workers.

Within weeks of the great docks strike in 1889 Tom Mann and Tillett were invited and readily agreed to join the Royal Commission on Labour, the purpose of which, of course, was to destroy workers' independent: action, especially strikes.

There are now about 900 Quangos, costing £35 million per annum.

ACAS alone costs

million.

The appointments are made by Ministers and a quarter of them are paid, at rates varying from £1,000- £10,000.

It is rumoured that Jack Jones sits on 13. At any rate 39 members of the TUC hold 180 state appointments between them.

Tory privilege

Harold McMillan is said to have appointed no less than 15 of his relatives to such bodies.

The Labour reply to Tory allegations of Labour patronage is of course that the House of Lords is the biggest Quango of all.

Even Callaghan does not mind the Labour manifesto being pledged to abolish it.

It is of course true that Tories are more likely to enjoy positions of privilege through birth and inherited wealth.

Hypocritical

It is also thoroughly hypocritical of the Tories to accuse Labour of spawning bureaucracy.

Some of the worst examples of bureaucratic excrescence, the NHS and local government as reorganised in 1974 and 1972 respectively, were established under a Tory government.

Current proposals to return control over social services, planning, traffic and education to the nonmetropolitan districts i.e. to split the major towns off from administration by the counties, will only lead to another administrative bonanza.

One third of the cost of the NHS is absorbed in administration.

Almost worse than the Quango system of patronage among trade union leaders is the system of special advisors introduced in the 1960's under the "white hot technology" era of Wilson.

Through this system large numbers of Labour Party members, mostly aca drafted in as advisors re Ministers.

"Counterweight'

Under the new proposals made for Parliamentary select committees, MPs would also have the services of such advisers.

They are supposed to act a political counterweight the wiles of civil servants.

The same thinking lies behind the demand of MPs for a new structure of 12 department-related committees which would also cover the activities of nationalised industries and Quangos.

•Membership of the committees would be decided not by the Whip but by a selection committee, and the committees would have the power to order both the attendance of Ministers and the production of reports.

All this is a vain attempt to wrest power from the cabinet and from the civil servants.

It is the opposite of the proposals made recently by Lord Hailsham and also of the trend within recent governments of centralising power and weakening the role of Parliament.

None of these attempted 'reforms' are likely to be implemented in this period of drastic curtailment of democracy.

Besides, no attempts to rationalise and democratise government can solve the problems of patronage, corruption, bureaucracy and inefficiency which are inevitable in attempts to manage economic and social relations under capitalism.

A glimpse of the system of state administration