Public Services, Quangos And Women: A Concern For Local Government

The past eighteen years have witnessed a shift in the locus of much public sector service provision from elected and heavily regulated local government to the more opaque, appointed sector of quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations (QUANGOs). This shift has been the basis of much debate about the nature of democratic accountability and whether the users of public services are empowered by such decentralization. What has yet to be considered is how the displacement of local authority representation and service delivery may affect different groups of service users. This article is concerned with such issues in relation to women as consumers of public services who, from genuine political as well as expedient motivations, have been relatively well represented by local authorities. The concern here is that as decision making moves away from public view, the need to be seen to accommodate difference is lost, and representative diversity will suffer.