quangos should they be the governing party in the 2016 election. Since coming to power they have reduced the overall number of quangos by 17. This reduction also included agencies which the former government had already planned to remove. New Zealand In New Zealand, quangos are referred to as 'Crown Entities', with the shift occurring in the 1980s during a period of neoliberalisation of the state sector. In 1996, New Zealand there was an estimated 310 quangos, plus an addition 2690 that were school Board of Trustees (similar to the American model of boards of education). Other quangos from 1996 include: "...63 Crown Health Enterprises, 39 tertiary education institutions, 21 Business development boards and 9 Crown Research Institutes. But there were also 71 single crown entities with services ranging from regulatory (e.g. Accounting Standards Review Board, Takeovers Panel) to quasi-judicial (e.g. Police Complaints Authority, Race Relations Conciliator), to the arts (e.g. New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, NZ Film Commission), to social welfare (e.g. Housing Corporation of NZ) and to substantial enterprises (e.g. Auckland International Airport Ltd)." By 2003, the number of quangos had increased to an estimated 400 (excluding Board of Trustees), with more than 3,000 people sitting on governance boards that were appointed by successive governments. This appointment of people to governance boards has been widely criticised by political parties and political commentators as a form of cronyism. In 2010, there were 2,607 crown entities (including Board of Trustees) with annual expenditure of $32billion in 2009/2010. United Kingdom Despite a 1979 'commitment' from the Conservative party to curb the growth of non-departmental bodies, their numbers grew rapidly throughout that party's time in power during the 1980s. One UK example is the Forestry Commission, which is a non-ministerial government department responsible for forestry in England. The Cabinet Office 2009 report on non-departmental public bodies found that there were 766 NDPBs sponsored by the UK government. The number had been falling: there were 827 in 2007 and 790 in 2008. The number of NDPBs had fallen by over 10% since 1997. Staffing and expenditure of NDPBs had increased. They employed 111,000 people in 2009 and spent £46.5 billion, of which £38.4 billion was directly funded by the Government. United States Use of the term quango is less common in the United States although many US bodies, including Government Sponsored Enterprises, operate in the same fashion. However, Paul Krugman has stated that the