Culture quangos ‘cost more and are less accountable’

More than two-thirds of Scotland’s councils have launched arm’s-length bodies to run cultural and leisure services to save money and improve efficiency.

However, a leader of the biggest union for council staff in Scotland will today use a  Holyrood committee inquiry to heavily criticise the quangos.

Douglas Black, Unison regional organiser, is expected to tell MSPs that culture quangos such as Glasgow Life can lead to “higher operating costs” because jobs are created within the body that were previously carried out by staff already employed by the council.

Mr Black told The Scotsman he had estimated that the additional expenditure run up by the quangos could cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, as well as leading to increased job insecurity among public sector workers.

He said: “It’s very difficult to quantify but we must be talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds as well as seeing a higher casualisation of the workforce.”

In evidence submitted to Holyrood’s education and culture committee, the union leader claims the trusts have been unable to find additional funding sources to those obtained by councils.

Mr Black also accuses the quangos of tax avoidance as he claims that the “driving force” behind setting up the bodies is to secure charitable status that allows for VAT exemptions.

And he highlights a lack of “democratic accountability” in the unelected bodies.

He said: “Our museums and galleries hold priceless artefacts owned by us all. Unison is concerned that large sections of public service delivery are being shifted off to arm’s-length bodies with very little research into the effectiveness of such change.”

Mr Black added that the quangos offered “little scope to make savings” as he warned that the bodies would be affected by cuts to public services.

He said: “Public spending is under severe pressure. There will undoubtedly be cuts in local authority funding to leisure trusts in future unless the current governments at Westminster and Holyrood change their plans.”

Eben Wilson, director of the Taxpayer Scotland campaign group, called on council chiefs to consider scrapping the culture quangos. He said: “Perhaps senior executives at these councils should review these initiatives in their entirety.”

However, local authority body the Association for Public Service Excellence, in its evidence to the committee, said that culture trusts – which have been launched by 23 councils in Scotland – were able to secure financial advantages over in-house services and save money for the taxpayer.

It said: “Leisure Trusts enjoy a relative advantage over direct provision as a result of mandatory and discretionary relief from national non-domestic rates.”

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council claimed that launching arm’s-length trusts to run services had saved millions of pounds for the public purse.

He said: “Setting up arm’s-length organisations has generated one-off income of £160 million for the council and they save us £23m every year. Their performance is scrutinised by council committee in much the same way as an internal service.”