Following the 2010 United Kingdom general election, the UK Government under the Cameron–Clegg coalition announced plans to curb public spending through the abolition of a large number of quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (quangos). This was styled in the national press as a "bonfire of the quangos",[1] making reference to Girolamo Savonarola's religiously inspired Bonfire of the Vanities ("falò delle vanità").[2][unreliable source?]
On 23 May 2010, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne unveiled a £500 million plan to reduce the budget deficit by abolishing or merging many quangos. The cuts and closures received criticism in some quarters,[3] but was generally welcomed by the business community.[4] A decade later in 2021, the UK Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee claimed in a report that the reforms “failed to spark” and that the Cabinet Office has “not been enforcing the code for public appointments”.[5]