British Vocabulary

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by TheStinger
A quango is any organisation which is set up by an act of parliament that has freedom form direct government control. It has its budget set by the government but other than that they are supposed to be independant. There is normaly a non executive board or council to overseas the running of it.

Who appoints the board?

If it's the government then it's very similar to most Crown Corps here. Some have greater freedom in their mandates (the CBC is almost entirely free from government intervention, other than through a general cut to their funding) and some have less (power companies have the rate set by the legislature, have their contracts negotiated by the government, etc.)

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Frozzy


Not necissarily. I'll take Air New Zealand as an example, as I know it.

Air NZ is a SOE. The NZ govt. owns ~ 80%. Qantas buy 25%, and get 2 board seats. The govt. has 5 and some other guy has the last.

So... the govt. has the majority, but Qantas gets the revenue, like any other enterprise. Yet, because the govt. has the larget share in Air NZ, it is still classified as an SOE.

No fair point. Most if not all of british natioanlised industries were soley owned by HMG.

My point was that I didn't think that they were Quango's.

I may be wrong or mor elikley the distinction doesn't matter. The Quango I work for is nominaly independant, but because of the budget setting by the goverment they are in control.

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Frogger


Who appoints the board?

If it's the government then it's very similar to most Crown Corps here. Some have greater freedom in their mandates (the CBC is almost entirely free from government intervention, other than through a general cut to their funding) and some have less (power companies have the rate set by the legislature, have their contracts negotiated by the government, etc.)

The Government does.

The BBC over here has complete editorial freedom from the government howvere the government has to review its statues every few years or so. That gives them influence

[Frozzy]

Can one buy shares into these Quangos, and take some power from the govt.? Say the govt. was running out of money.

(purely hypothetical)

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Frozzy
Can one buy shares into these Quangos, and take some power from the govt.? Say the govt. was running out of money.

(purely hypothetical)

No.

Most of them exist to dish out goverment money anyway

[monolith94]

Blur is great! Although their live version of Stereotypes is currently at the head of my itunes playcount for the band, it is closely followed by girls & boys and coffee & tv.

My number one most played song with 42 times, is "Follow Your Bliss" - by the B52s. I'm guessing that Snapcase hates the B-52s as well, as I think they have the most in common with Blur.

[Drake Tungsten]

Although their live version of Stereotypes is currently at the head of my itunes playcount for the band, it is closely followed by girls & boys and coffee & tv.

I only have B-sides (73 of them) on my iTunes playlist, so I can't really tell what A-sides I've listened to the most. Coffee & TV would probably be up near the top, although I doubt it's anywhere close to challenging Chemical World...

[Drake Tungsten]

Where are you, Paiktis? You haven't made fun of me for being a redneck Blur fan in a while...