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Showing posts with label Quangos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quangos. Show all posts

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Equality Quango Staff Rebel Over BNP ‘Sting’

Insiders at the commission say three regional executives were asked to find black and Asian “agents” who would approach BNP councillors with purported complaints about poor council services.

The executives were also asked to recruit “agent provocateurs” from ethnic minority groups to apply for membership of the far-right party.'

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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Quangos Blackball ... oops, Sorry ... Veto ‘Racist’ Everyday Phrases


It could be construed as a black day for the English language — but not if you work in the public sector.

Dozens of quangos and taxpayer-funded organisations have ordered a purge of common words and phrases so as not to cause offence.

Among the everyday sayings that have been quietly dropped in a bid to stamp out racism and sexism are “whiter than white”, “gentleman’s agreement”, “black mark” and “right-hand man”.

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Sunday, February 08, 2009

The Rise of the EU Quangos

Just like in the UK, all too many EU agencies duplicate work done elsewhere, crowd out private sector activity and add very dubious value.
Probably the most indefensible of these bodies is the European Defence Agency (EDA). It is well-documented that European nations do not spend enough on their own defence.
But instead of increasing that spending, Eurocrats decided the solution was to set up a quango.

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Monday, December 08, 2008

Bin Banisher's Reward: £30,000 Bonus For Waste Watchdog Who Helped Abolish Weekly Collection

The boss of the controversial organisation behind the abolition of weekly rubbish collections received a bonus of £30,000 last year.

Liz Goodwin, the chief executive of WRAP, was rewarded for spreading the doctrine of compulsory recycling.

The payment took the value of her pay and perks to more than £200,000 – outstripping the Prime Minister’s salary of £189,994.

WRAP, which cost the taxpayer nearly £80million last year, has become an increasingly controversial body over the past five years.

It was the quango that pressed councils to abandon weekly rubbish collections and replace them with fortnightly bin pick-ups, with households compelled to followcomplicated recycling rules.
WRAP advised councils to introduce fortnightly collections during winter, so no one would notice the smells until it was too late to protest, and to avoid bringing them in at election times, to prevent voters having a say.

Its activities allowed ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which pays for WRAP, to imply that the introduction of fortnightly collections had nothing to do with them.

The high levels of pay, bonuses and pensions for WRAP bosses provoked criticism from MPs and pressure groups.

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