Press Releases
Launch of the Online Quango Database
PRESS RELEASE
2007
• There has yet to be any sign of a release for the 2007 data
The ERC like all think tanks aims to close the gap between policy and knowledge. However, there can be no knowledge without ordered information. Data on the UK's quangos is today highly dispersed and difficult to interpret without losing an enormous amount of time. That's why, after a great deal of effort, the ERC is launching a publicly available database on the UK's quangos with all data on UK quangos from 1998 - 2006, in order to improve UK government transparency.
Dan Lewis, Research Director of the Economic Research Council says:
"40 years ago, in the name of transparency, the ERC was instrumental in persuading Prime Minister Wilson's government to publish economic statistics for public consumption. Today, the ERC believes that as Quangos have become such a big part of government of which we know so little, we have a new transparency failing. The time has come to address that and the ERC Quango database - a transparency tool - is another forward step in informing our democracy. This database not only answers questions but asks hard ones about the democratic deficit at the heart of the quangocracy."
