Your quangos need you
March 19, 2010 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
Public appointments: The Tate Gallery is one organisation considering applications Photograph: David Sillitoe
If you’d like to decide which civil servant gets a gong, want to regulate architects or have a calling to become a museum trustee, then maybe the life of a quangocrat is for you.
Over the years ministers have regularly pledged a bonfire of these unelected bodies which regulate much of modern life. However, they show no sign of dying off and someone’s got to run them. So what kind of people fill these posts – and, more pertinently, are they people like you?
The opportunities lie not in those lumbering behemoths such as the utility regulators but in the many boards, trusts, disciplinary panels, oversight committees and other loose change of the democratic process. The job will be part-time and the pay might be amount to no more than travelling expenses, but in today’s portfolio working it could be a wise career move and a way of learning skills and tapping into different networks.
Former City lawyer Janet Gaymer is the Commissioner for Public Appointments. She is charged with making sure the most senior quango officials are appointed fairly. “I like to call it the ultimate in flexible working,” she says.
The government’s official count of what it calls non-departmental public bodies (NDPB) stands at 766. It calculates they employ 110,000 people and control £46bn in expenditure. However, that definition is drawn rather narrowly and some Whitehall watchers put the figure at more than 1,000 organisations with spending at £64bn. On top of that are hundreds of local health, housing and education trusts.
The Cabinet Office’s public appointments website lists more than 40 vacancies at the moment, many of which involve becoming members of local health bodies.
There are also opportunities listed on the Appointments Commission portal.
If military history is your thing then the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth needs three new trustees. This will involve about 10 days’ work a year and reasonable expenses are paid. But hurry, as the deadline for applications is 22 March. Such posts come up regularly. The Royal Armouries in Leeds has just closed the deadline on appointing a board member, while Tate Gallery is considering applications for a trustee. The person selected for that post will work alongside London School of Economics director Sir Howard Davies and media supremo Elisabeth Murdoch.
Gaymer says: “There is a huge range of organisations out there so almost anything you might be interested in is likely to have a body involved in that field. It is an excellent chance to add to your CV and a real opportunity to learn something new. People from the private sector tell me that they go back into their organisations with new ways of thinking.”
Alternatively you could play …
Read the original article at Guardian
