Yorkshire 'bonfire of quangos' to slash public jobs

The quangos set for axe in Yorkshire

The National Policing Improvement Agency, which employs 200 people in Harrogate, the Health Protection Agency, which has more than 150 staff across Yorkshire, and British Waterways, which has 150 employees in Leeds, all feature on a leaked Cabinet Office hit-list naming scores of public bodies which face the axe.

The draft document also includes the closures of regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, which has 400 staff in the region, 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.

The proposals suggest around 180 quangos will go in total, with a further 125 facing mergers and several more privatised.

Other major quangos facing the axe around the country include the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Commission for Integrated Transport, and Cycling England.

Almost 100 more organisations are still "under review", with staff facing an anxious wait, including the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Homes and Communities Agency and the Forestry Commission – which between them employ nearly 1,000 people in Yorkshire alone.

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

The Home Office last night confirmed the abolition of the National Policing Improvement Agency, set up in 2007 to advise police forces on best practice.

A spokesman said: "The Government is clear the police service must be radically reformed to deliver a more efficient service. As part of this programme, we will simplify the landscape of the police service by phasing out the National Policing Improvement Agency."

Several organisations earmarked for closure said they will continue to exist in a different form, however, and that many staff will be retained.

British Waterways, in charge of the country's canals and rivers, is to become an independent charity, while the Legal Services Commission, which has a 40-strong office in Leeds, said it is to become an "executive agency" – a different type of quango.

But organisations such as the Appointments Commission – which helps recruit people to Government and public sector jobs from its base in Yorkshire – will disappear altogether.

Chief executive Andrea Sutcliffe said: "I am disappointed this decision has been made, but I recognise it is the consequence of significant policy changes made by the coalition Government."

In a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude outlined the reasoning behind the proposed cuts, stating the changes "are intended primarily to increase accountability, but will also support the aims of the spending review by reducing costs, and support our ambitions for a Big Society by encouraging alternative devolved or non-state delivery models".

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said yesterday that plans revealed in the leaked document had been revised and that a final announcement will be made "in due course".

But there was immediate criticism from Labour MPs. Shadow Communities Secretary John Denham said a number of bodies facing abolition "actually have the job of holding the Government to account".

Head of the civil service Sir Gus O'Donnell has launched a hunt for the source of the leak.