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By Sarah Modlock

We know that MPs have been wasting our money for years. The BBC is not much better with its tales of long lunches and bouquets of flowers. But who else is syphoning off taxpayers' hard-earned cash for fun and games? You can guarantee that Britain's 1,162 quangos are getting more than their fair share. Yes, that's right: 1,162 quangos.

The Oxford English dictionary defines a quango (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation) as 'a semi-publicadministrative body with financial support from and senior appointments made by the government.' No wonder it is so easy to set them up and let them keep spending; seemingly no one is accountable. The government is not even entirely sure how many quangos it has set up. It claims there are 790 of them costing £34billion but a detailed survey last year by the Taxpayers' Alliance shows that there are 1,162 at a cost closer to £60billion or an incredible £2,550 per household.

The Taxpayers' Alliance carried out the work five years after the government was instructed to (and failed) to do so by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Public Administration. It found that even under the Cabinet Office’s restrictive definition of quangos, the cost of these bodies has risen by half in the last ten years and now employ an incredible 700,000 bureaucrats.

The many and varied quangos range from the massive e.g. Job Centre Plus (Staff: 70,042, Cost: £3.5 billion) and the Courts Service (Staff: 19,986, Cost: £704.8 million); to the bizarre e.g. the British Potato Council (Staff: 49); or the West Northants Development Corporation (Staff: 34, Cost: £15.3 million).

Bonfire of the quangos

David Cameron has declared that if the Conservatives are elected they will cut the number of quangos to save money and increase accountability. He is said to have already asked his shadow cabinet to look at the long list and identify those quangos which can be easily culled, shrunk, paid less or have their powers altered.

In his speech to the Reform think-tank, he said the "growth of the quango state" was "one of the main reasons so many people feel that nothing ever changes, nothing will ever get done and that government's automatic response to any problem is to pass the buck and send people from pillar to post until they just give up in exasperated fury". He added: "Too many state actions, services and decisions are carried out by people who cannot be voted out by the public, by organisations that feel no pressure to answer for what happens - in a way that is completely unaccountable."

He acknowledged that "there are some quangos that have a technical function - inspecting nuclear installations. Or they have a transparency function - like the Office for National Statistics. But in too many cases these organisations have got bigger and bigger. They spend about £64bn a year, they start having their own communications departments, their own press officers; they start making policy rather than just delivering policy - and their bosses are paid vast amounts of money." He said too many quangos had become "lobbying organisations" and there was a duplication where both they and government departments were making policy and have been "empire building" - 68 quango heads were now paid more than the prime minister.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne said the government would review quangos to try to "make sure every penny of public money goes to frontline services", adding that the Conservative proposals included the creation of at least another 17 quangos, a claim rejected by the Tories.

You've been quango'd

So what do these bodies do with our money?

In July it emerged that Britain's biggest quango wasted hundreds of millions of pounds through ' catastrophic mismanagement' of a flagship college building programme. The Learning and Skills Council - which has an annual budget of £12billion and employs 3,500 staff - pledged billions to revamp further education colleges but ran out of money, leaving dozens of projects unfinished. Surveys suggest £215million has already been spent on stalled projects, £187million will have to be written off if the projects don't move forward and £269million will be spent on extra maintenance. But I know you will feel reassured by the fact that the council is being disbanded and is being replaced by three new quangos next April.

In May we learnt that the National Policing Improvement Agency had spent £70million on consultants. It was also advertising 340 job vacancies which paid salaries up to £88,597.

But it's not just financial matters that are in question. Just last month, more than 100 employees at the Environment Agency were investigated for emailing pornography to each other. Five have been sacked and dozens suspended pending the outcome of an inquiry into the scandal.

 When the Mirror used the Freedom of Information Act to find out figures for the last year, the answers were shocking:

'Bonding sessions' - total: £7.5million

• Consumer Focus - a quango created last October to "campaign for a fair deal for consumers" - spent £120,000 of consumers' money treating 109 staff to a night at the Ramada Jarvis hotel, Manchester. The bill works out at £1,100 per head.
• The Big Lottery Fund spent over £72,500 in 2007 on fun days and bonding activities for staff.
• The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland spent £1,380 hiring three actors to role-play in a training day for 13 assessors who work an average of just 18 days a year for the organisation.
• The Commission for Social Care Inspection spent £29,475 on team building sessions, including karting and trips on the London Eye.
• The General Teaching Council spent £1,640 on a "professional standards team day" at botanical gardens.
• The Law Commission had a day at the Science Museum, London, at a cost of £11,826.
• 17 board members of independent NHS regulator Monitor spent £1,119-per head at the prestigious Cadogan Hotel in London's Knightsbridge. Costs included £2,176 on dinner, breakfast and lunch and £267.50 on booze.
• The Judicial Appointments Commission threw staff parties at the Tower of London and the Cabinet War Rooms costing £11,273.
• The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator paid more than £6,500 to treat staff to a day of quad biking, archery, jeep racing, laser shooting and treasure hunting.
• Audit Scotland - whose job it is "to ensure public sector bodies in Scotland make effective use of public funds" - took staff to the four-star Peebles Hydro spa hotel and spent £24,795.

Overseas trips - total: £11.5million

• The UK Film Council spent more than £300,000 on nearly 200 foreign trips.
• The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council spent £17,854.29 on a return trip to San Francisco for three people.
• The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority -  responsible for closing down and cleaning up the UK's nuclear sites - made 281 foreign trips (including Las Vegas) costing a total of £263,635.
• The North West Regional Development Agency spent £146,593 on 126 overseas trips including Brisbane, Bombay, Malaga, Moscow, Tokyo and Toronto.
• Regional development agency Advantage West Midlands spent £6,380 to fly a member of staff business-class to LA.
• The Wales Centre for Health sent two staff to Boston cost over £5,800. Another trip for two to New Zealand cost over £4,600.
• Lord James Drummond Young went on a £5,945.82 trip to the Pacific Island paradise of Vanuatu to attend a conference for Australasian Law Reform Agencies - even though he heads the Scottish Law Commission. A spokesman for the Scottish Law Commission said: "It is important for the reform of Scots law that we look to other countries for ideas about how the law might be reformed."

Wining and dining - total: £20million (For the same money we could train 1,200 nurses or put 900 extra police officers on the streets)

• The South West Regional Development Agency spent £20,775 on a reception for Liberal Democrat MPs in Bournemouth.
• Independent rail consumer watchdog Passenger Focus, whose motto is "putting passengers first" spent £36,503 on parties for MPs at three party conferences.
• Regional development agency Advantage West Midlands spent £2,304 taking 30 VIPs to the RSC's performance of David Tennant's Hamlet. It said the trip was used to launch a national marketing campaign and "the rationale for the location and event was to utilise a high-profile performance by a regional cultural provider".
• The Heritage Lottery Fund spent £9,525 on a party for stakeholders at the National Gallery last September - just to mark a change in chairmanship.
• The UK Atomic Energy Authority - which is responsible for decommissioning nuclear reactors and has nothing to do with sport at all - splashed out £6,900 on a VIP box for just 10 people at the England v Scotland rugby international at Twickenham.
• The London Development Agency spent £44,201 on an evening reception, where 320 guests downed £8,887 worth of "free" drinks.
• The Homes and Communities Agency, which spent £55,298 on a dinner, reception, breakfast meeting and seminars. It also spent £31,701 on transport and accommodation for seven staff who attended the three-day event.