An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive. Executive agencies are "machinery of government" devices distinct both from non-ministerial government departments and non-departmental public bodies (or "quangos"), each of which enjoy legal and constitutional separation from ministerial control. The model has been applied in several other countries.
Size and scope edit
Agencies[1] include well-known organisations such as His Majesty's Prison Service and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. The annual budget for each agency, allocated by HM Treasury, ranges from a few million pounds for the smallest agencies to £700m for the Court Service.[citation needed] Virtually all government departments have at least one agency.
Issues and reports edit
The initial success or otherwise of executive agencies was examined in the Sir Angus Fraser's Fraser Report of 1991. Its main goal was to identify what good practices had emerged from the new model and spread them to other agencies and departments. The report also recommended further powers be devolved from ministers to chief executives.
A series of reports and white papers examining governmental delivery were published throughout the 1990s, under both Conservative and Labour governments. During these the agency model became the standard model for delivering public services in the United Kingdom. By 1997, 76% of civil servants were employed by an agency. The new Labour government in its first such report – the 1998 Next Steps Report – endorsed the model introduced by its predecessor. A later review (in 2002, linked below) made two central conclusions (their emphasis):
"The agency model has been a success. Since 1988 agencies have transformed the landscape of government and the responsive and effectiveness of services delivered by Government."
Some agencies have, however, become disconnected from their departments ... The gulf between policy and delivery is considered by most to have widened."
The latter point is usually made more forcefully by critics of the government,[who?] describing agencies as "unaccountable quangos".[citation needed]
List by department edit
Cabinet Office edit
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy edit
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities edit
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport edit
- Building Digital UK[2]
- Royal Parks
Department for Education edit
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs edit
- Animal and Plant Health Agency
- Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
- Rural Payments Agency
- Veterinary Medicines Directorate
Department for Transport edit
- Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
- Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency
- Maritime and Coastguard Agency
- Vehicle Certification Agency
Department of Health and Social Care edit
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office edit
HM Treasury edit
Ministry of Defence edit
- Defence Electronics and Components Agency
- Defence Equipment and Support
- Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
- UK Hydrographic Office
- Submarine Delivery Agency
Ministry of Justice edit
Other countries edit
Several other countries have an executive agency model.
In the United States, the Clinton administration imported the model under the name "performance-based organizations."[3]
In Canada, executive agencies were adopted on a limited basis under the name "special operating agencies."[4] One example is the Translation Bureau under Public Services and Procurement Canada.
Executive agencies were also established in Australia, Jamaica, Japan and Tanzania.[citation needed]
See also edit
References edit
- ^ "Executive Agencies". GOV.UK. Cabinet Office. 28 October 2009. Archived from the original on 6 October 2007. Retrieved 13 November 2007 – via The National Archives.
- ^ "Building Digital UK". GOV.UK. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
- ^ Roberts, Alasdair. Performance-Based Organizations: Assessing the Gore Plan. Public Administration Review, Vol. 57, No. 6, pp. 465-478, December 1997.
- ^ Roberts, Alasdair. Public Works and Government Services: Beautiful Theory Meets Ugly Reality. HOW OTTAWA SPENDS, G. Swimmer, ed., pp. 171-203 Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1996
External links edit
- Economic Research Council online database of all UK Quangos 1998-2006, archived in 2007
- 2002 Government report into the agencies model entitled "Better Government Services – Executive agencies in the 21st century" published by The Prime Minister's Office of Public Services Reform. Contains a list of agencies. (PDF)
- Civil Service (archived in 2008)