List of 192 quangos to be culled is revealed

• The UK Film Council is the be axed

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said a further 118 bodies would be merged and another 171 "substantially" reformed in the long-awaited "bonfire of the quangos".

Among the bodies to be axed are the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, the Renewable Fuels Agency and the Appointments Commission, which will all have their functions taken on by Government departments.

Enabling organisations such as the Design Council and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and Arts will be turned into charities, while the work of the development corporations will be turned over to local government.

• Click here for a full list of affected quangos

The mergers - which will see 118 bodies reduced to 57 - include the amalgamation of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission into a single competition and market authority.

Bodies facing major reform include the Environment Agency and the Homes and Communities Agency, which will have their work "streamlined".

Mr Maude said he would be introducing a Public Bodies Bill to implement the changes.

The figures released today include the abolition of a number of quangos which had already been announced, the regional development agencies, the UK Film Council and the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency.

Scotland's own indigenous quangos remain the responsibility of the Scottish Government.

Mr Maude said the changes would usher in a "new era of accountability" in government.

In all, the total number of quangos will be cut from 901 to 648, with the future of 40 bodies still under consideration.

"We know that for a long time there has been a huge hunger for change," Mr Maude said.

"People have been fed-up with the old way of doing business, where the ministers they voted for could often avoid taking responsibility for difficult and tough decisions by creating or hiding behind one of these quangos.

"Today's announcement means that many important and essential functions will be brought back into departments, meaning the line of accountability will run right up to the very top, where it always should have been."

Union leaders described the abolition of public bodies as "short-sighted, undemocratic and a waste of public funds."

Paul Noon, general secretary of civil service union Prospect described the Government's mechanism for implementing its programme - the Public Bodies Reform Bill - as "a legislative hammer to smash public bodies which are doing valuable work in the public interest."

He warned: "This is more than a quango cull, it's a massacre of the innocents. In many cases the Government is abolishing bodies that cost peanuts but provide invaluable scientific or other expert advice to government.

"In other cases the costs of closure are greater than their running costs, or closure runs directly counter to the Prime Minister's call for a big society.

"Much of this smacks of tokenism but where bodies perform essential functions in the public interest for the environment, health or heritage they must be maintained in some form."

The union condemned the fact that many announcements had been made with "little or no consultation" with experts and users.