Once again quangos were in the news because of a leaked list of 177 which are facing the axe. The surprise is that no one seems to have noticed that it’s missing the Strategic Health Authorities (28) and the Primary Care Trusts (303). And yes they are quangos,  as they were listed in the 2005/06 Public Bodies Report , the last serious attempt by the Cabinet Office to keep track of the quangocracy. So I’ll be making this point and others in the Yorkshire Post tomorrow. When you understand the scale of the SHA and PCT budgets being taken over by GPs, it quickly becomes obvious that this  is by far the most significant quango cull of all.

Anyway, interviewed by Jane Hill on BBC News TV earlier this this week, I argued that there’s plenty of scope for the outsourcing of public services provided by these public bodies.  So news that Suffolk County Council plans to outsource most of its services points to what could start to happen at the Central government level.