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The role of legislatures in scrutinising executive patronage has received scant attention in the context of parliamentary democracy. This article addresses this lacuna by focusing on the parliamentary scrutiny of public appointments in the UK. Presenting the results of an extensive programme of research, it reveals how select committees have accrued increasing powers to challenge ministerial appointments, and how this has resulted in a series of unintended consequences that raise critical concerns regarding the overall added-value of pre-appointment scrutiny. The article is therefore of comparative significance for theories of legislative scrutiny in particular and executive–legislature dynamics more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of arm's-length bodies to deliver certain services, to regulate certain sectors or to assume responsibility for particularly salient political issues is neither new in historical terms or a feature unique to the UK in comparative terms. What is particularly distinctive, however, is the Coalition Government's attempts since 2010 to reduce the number of ‘quangos’ while also strengthening the capacity of the core executive and sponsor departments to control and co-ordinate this dense and fragmented sphere of delegated governance. Drawing upon the findings of the first research project to analyse the current Public Bodies Reform Agenda, this article provides an account of the ‘filling-in’ of the ‘hollowing out’. It argues that when viewed through a historical lens, the Coalition Government has adopted a distinctive approach to ‘the quango problem’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The delegation of functions to a range of quasi-autonomous bodies has formed a major challenge to the operation of representative democracy, in both administrative and democratic terms, since the formation of the modern state. These challenges have been more pronounced within Westminster-style democracies that are founded on the logic of ministerial departments and the convention of individual ministerial responsibility to Parliament. Towards the end of the twentieth century, these challenges became more pronounced as the centrifugal dynamics of New Public Management led to what has been termed the 'unravelling' or 'unbundling' of the state. In many countries around the world concerns regarding a 'democratic deficit' and patronage stimulated reform campaigns demanding territorial devolution in the belief that new regional democratic structures could increase accountability and transparency. This was particularly true in the UK where proponents of devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland claimed that such a reform would lead to a 'bonfire of quangos'. This article draws upon theories derived in relation to multi-level governance in order to frame an analysis of how devolution has altered the sphere of delegated governance. This reveals a complex pattern of resource dependencies, motivations and incentives that have led to markedly different reform trajectories but certainly not the 'end of the quango state'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the theories and methods that have been developed and deployed by scholars in order to understand both the cause and effect of delegation within state systems. It identifies three dominant traditions in the study of delegation, each of which reflects a certain disciplinary lineage as well as great variety in terms of ontological, epistemological and methodological positions. The aim of this article is not to make any normative claims about the innate superiority of any particular approach but to instead argue in favour of a pluralistic methodology which is sensitive to the layered quality of knowledge. By way of forging a sense of a shared enemy or weakness, the article concludes by arguing that all three traditions are united by their relative failure to study the logic of delegation and the power of ideas. In essence, each of the traditions has focused too heavily on what could be termed the politics of delegation (that is, the secondary consequences of delegation) and has, as a result, failed to focus attention on the politicization of delegation in terms of locating the basic logic of delegation back within the contours of public contestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Delegated governance refers to the wide range of quasi-autonomous organizations – ‘fringe bodies, quangos and all that’ – to which an increasing proportion of state activity is now delegated. Recent reports by the OECD have emphasized the growing role of these bodies in relation to policy-making, regulation and administration within advanced industrial countries. However, the existence of delegated forms of governance enjoying an arm's length relationship to elected politicians raises fundamental questions regarding the operation and nature of representative democracy. Political devolution to regions within nation states has long been advocated as a potential solution to concerns regarding the control, accountability and patronage in relation to these bodies. This article presents the findings of a research project that examined the degree to which devolution to Scotland since 1998 has impacted upon the structure of delegated governance and the possible policy implications this may have for other European states. The research suggests that although the sphere of delegated governance in Scotland post-devolution has grown it has led to the creation of a new governance framework, which may assuage concerns regarding the ‘democratic deficit’ that is commonly associated with quasi-autonomous public bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]