Bonfire of the quangos
Commission for the Compact, the Office for Civil Society Advisory Body and Capacitybuilders are among the organisations to be axed
The Commission for the Compact, the Office for Civil Society Advisory Body and the voluntary sector infrastructure body Capacitybuilders will be abolished as part of the government’s review of quangos, the Cabinet Office has confirmed.
A document published by the department this morning, which names 192 non-departmental public bodies that will be abolished, says the advisory body will cease to exist when its members’ terms of office end in March 2011.
It says the functions of the Commission for the Compact, which promotes the Compact agreement between the government and the voluntary sector, will be carried out by Compact Voice and the Cabinet Office.
The document also says Capacitybuilders will be abolished. "Alternative delivery for capacity-building activity is under review," it says.
The Community Development Foundation, a quango with charitable status that manages funding programmes such as the £130m Grassroots Grants programme, will lose its public body status and will become a social enterprise, the document says.
The Big Lottery Fund will be retained, but responsibility for it will transfer from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to the Cabinet Office. The Charity Commission will be retained "on the grounds of impartiality", the document says.
Some quangos that are being abolished, including the Design Council and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, will attempt to become charities.
