Quangocracy backing the Tories to attack public services

In a ferocious storm all sorts of creatures emerge from their hiding places.

Today's Grauniad introduced me to a couple of elements of what you might call the "quangocracy" who are eagerly sharpening knives to join in ConDem butchery of our public services (http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jun/22/budget-2010-cut-smart-thinktank).

The Institute for Government(http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/) is a charity - but not one for which many public servants will want to go on a sponsored walk for since its contribution to debate is to laud the irrelevant "Canadian experience" of the 1990s(http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/news/article/127/learning-the-lessons-how-canada-successfully-eliminated-its-budget-deficit-in-the-1990s). (Our economy is not dwarfed by a single, dominant and economically vibrant trading partner and today's Budget is far more likely to propel us into depression than into recovery).

The Institute is working with the Public Chairs' Forum (http://www.publicchairsforum.org.uk/) - which is not, as you might think, a useful body supporting park benches and other public seating but rather an exclusive club for those unelected individuals running the various different unaccountable bodies into the care of which successive Governments have placed many of our public services (http://www.publicchairsforum.org.uk/about/).

These bodies want "clever cuts" to improve services. The technical term to describe this aspiration is nonsense. Their real meaning is that "reforms" which would not normally be achievable may be possible in the context of vicious cuts.

Only yesterday I had drawn to my attention some job cuts for which there is no financial need or justification but which managers clearly hope to drive through in the climate of cuts to achieve long standing - and IMHO deeply reactionary and damaging - managerial objectives.

This sort of sleight of hand will be practised by Thatcherite scoundrels throughout public management - and bodies such as the Institute for Government and the Public Chairs' Forum will be there as cheerleaders for attacks on our jobs and services.

Cuts don't improve services and those who say they can are fools or liars.

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