Thousands to discover jobs fate in quango axe

Officials are expected to kill off up to 180 organisations, with about 125 more facing mergers or privatisation.

Employees have faced an uncertain future since a Cabinet Office hit-list identifying scores of public bodies facing the axe was leaked to a newspaper.

Today the Government is expected to confirm the final outcome, although the cost of closing some is likely to limit savings to the Treasury in the short-term and many jobs may be absorbed into other organisations as the functions still have to be carried out.

Officials have already confirmed the closure of the National Policing Improvement Agency, which employs 200 in Harrogate, while the leaked list also included British Waterways, which has 150 employees in Leeds and is to be turned into an independent charity.

The draft document also included the closures of regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, which has 400 staff in the region and whose abolition has already been announced, and public spending watchdog the Audit Commission, which has 143 employees around Yorkshire. The Appointments Commission, with 54 workers in Leeds, and the School Food Trust, with 42 staff in Sheffield, are also set to close.

Other major quangos facing the axe include the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Commission for Integrated Transport, and the Commission for Rural Communities.

Today's announcement follows David Cameron's pledge last summer that he intended a "bonfire of the quangos" if he came to power, promising many organisations would be "slimmed down radically", with others abolished altogether.

The leak of the draft list sparked an inquiry to be launched by head of the civil service Sir Gus O'Donnell.