The world is watching the United States’ Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with bated breath, though with mixed expectations, whether it’s with hope, curiosity, trepidation, or abject horror. DOGE, originally the United States Digital Service, is headed up by Elon Musk, who proudly waved a chainsaw given to him by Javier Milei in praise of his efforts, and who has so far saved US taxpayers $115 billion.
We’re all watching for different reasons, but for most conservatives and right-of-center parties, it is in the desperate hope that DOGE will succeed where they have failed. Across the developed world, nations are searching for a solution to out-of-control government spending and seemingly coming up short.
In Germany, in 2023, the budget deficit was slashed by two-thirds in attempts to comply with the debt-brake rule, but as of March, the government has seemingly given up, opting instead to reform the debt-brake rule rather than spending. At the end of last year, and in a precarious position, France’s Prime Minister Michel Barnier proposed cutting spending by €40bn. As far back as 2016, the Spanish government was repeatedly failing to control its deficit and return to sound money.
For those of us in Britain, Musk’s DOGE offers a tantalizing prospect: that massive government waste might finally be brought under control. This is a story with which we are well-acquainted, as it has haunted successive governments ever since the financial crash of 2008.
In 2010, when David Cameron became the first Conservative Prime Minister in fourteen years, bringing the deficit under control was the central goal of his government. Formed as a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015, the government pursued a program of strict austerity, cutting waste wherever it could—but still failing. While the deficit fell impressively from 10% of GDP to 2%, government expenditure rose from roughly £1.6 trillion to nearly £2 trillion in the same period.
One source of expenditure that Cameron—and all subsequent prime ministers—could never grapple with was the vast array of arms-length bodies that supported government activity, known as quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations, or “quangos.” Quangos have become a source of ire in Britain due to their remarkable levels of influence and power yet sheer lack of accountability. For people of all political stripes, they represent a paradox: essentially private organizations contracted by the government to provide myriad services that the state cannot, or will not, perform. As a result, they are both well-funded but unelected.
So unpopular have quangos become that even the center-left Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has declared the abolition of the quango NHS England, returning its management responsibilities to ministerial control.
This is not new. In 2012, Cameron, with his chancellor George Osborne, declared a “bonfire of the quangos,” an attempt to bring many different arms-length bodies back under ministerial control through thorough, detailed review of which services could be governmental and which could be cut. At the time, The Guardian lambasted the move for costing “nearly double the original estimate” of £830 million.
A 2021 report published by the Cabinet Office found that quangos are funded to the tune of £223.9 billion across 295 quangos. Harry Phibbs estimates that, if this figure has risen with inflation, the cost would now be £270 billion. In reality, the costs come closer to £353 billion, accounting for as much as 60% of government spending.
Evidently, the quangocracy remains an expensive thorn in a threadbare government’s side, and trying to reform it has thwarted many a government. But part of the failure may lie in the method; after all, the difficulty with the quangocracy is that it is not a monolith, but a vast network of organizations, many of which perform essential functions, or are noble causes to support. For instance, in abolishing NHS England, Starmer is not leaving a vacuum of managerialism—as much as we might wish for it—but is simply reincorporating it into the British state.
The skeptics among us will inevitably point out that the initial move might be welcomed, but if all it does is lead to a more-bloated NHS with greater funding, then it might not be the great solution to vast government waste we so desire. Yet the cautious approach that has been pursued by previous governments, involving careful consideration of every quango, has proven insufficient in bringing the spiraling cost of government down.
This is why DOGE is so important. Perhaps the hack-and-slash approach of Presidents Trump and Milei will prove more effective in providing a long-term, permanent revolution of how states are structured and funded. Perhaps a period of clearing the decks will be better in the long run. It’s all we can hope for—that DOGE will succeed where we in Britain have failed.
