A restrained cheer went up from some UK businesspeople and others when Chancellor Gordon Brown, in his March Budget, announced that 35 regulatory agencies would be reduced to just nine. But not many people noticed that the same Budget created three new quangos too. Not surprising: you weren't meant to notice it.

But then it got worse. A mere week later, Education Secretary Ruth Kelly published a White Paper on skills, proposing the establishment of 25 new sector skills councils, reporting to a sector skills development agency and the Learning and Skills Council.

Then before the month was out, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver had caused such a public fuss about school meals that Kelly added another new quango, the School Food Trust.

All in all, I figure that we now have more quangos than we started with. And this is why we are living in a "quango polity", says Dan Lewis in Whitehall & Westminster World (subscription only). Politicians' tendency to shunt off every problem to some new "expert" boards and committees is so strong that you really have to be ruthless if you are to keep their numbers in check at all. Not to mention the number of civil-servants they employ and the generous salaries paid to their members and directors.