Public Bodies Simplification Programme
In October 2007 the Scottish Government published a baseline list of 199 national devolved public bodies and committed to reduce numbers by 25% as part of its Simplification Programme. Details of plans to reshape Scotland's public bodies landscape were announced to Parliament on the 30 January 2008.
The commitment to reduce the number of public bodies by 25% was reflected in National Indicator 6 – ‘reduce the number of Scottish public bodies by 25% by 2011’ as part of the National Performance Framework and Scotland Performs.
As at December 2011 the number of public bodies had reduced from the baseline position of 199 to 144 (including the abolition of 26 Justice of the Peace Advisory Committee which was set in hand by the previous administration). The Scottish Parliament had also passed the Children’s Hearing’s (Scotland) Act 2010, which when fully implemented will further reduce the number of public bodies to around 112, thus delivering and exceeding the commitment to a 25% reduction in the number of public bodies.
In December 2011, the National Performance Framework was refreshed in order to reflect the SGs most up-to-date priorities and replace or remove indicators which reflected targets which had been superseded or achieved. National Indicator 6 was therefore removed from the measurement set, and is now a Legacy Target within Scotland Performs. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/scotPerforms/2007indicators. It has been replaced by two new indicators: to improve people's perceptions of the quality of public services and to improve the responsiveness of public services.
Table 16 and Table 17 provide information on employment levels for the 199 public bodies operating at the baseline position (Q3 2007), compared with employment levels in each quarter from Q4 2008 onwards.
The National Public Bodies Directory provides a range of information, including the latest employment estimates, for each of the national devolved public bodies in Scotland.