The problems at Riverside Inverclyde, highlighted by The Herald this week, have again drawn attention to the lack of democratic accountability and transparency that surrounds the use of quangos in Scotland.

A quango, or non-departmental public body, is an organisation that has responsibility for developing, managing and delivering public policy objectives at arm's length from government. Such bodies assist in the delivery of public services in Scotland including culture, healthcare, the environment and justice. Reform Scotland believes that as these bodies are neither fully democratically accountable nor fully independent of government this can lead to a lack of transparency and accountability.

A democracy should have an established and clear chain of accountability to the electorate. Civil servants tend to work in a Government department headed by a Minister who is accountable to the Scottish Parliament between elections and to the public at elections. There is a clear line of accountability between public sector action and the electorate. Independent organisations which enter into contractual relationships with government to deliver services also offer greater clarity and transparency in the delivery of Government objectives. The growth of quangos has distorted accountability because such organisations have less direct ministerial involvement. This allows the Government to hive off difficult decisions to non-Government bodies, passing on any negative reaction.

While there was a greater degree of accountability in the case of Riverside Inverclyde due to a number of leading Inverclyde councillors sitting on the board, at a national level this is not normally the case. It is also worth pointing out that in the case of Riverside Inverclyde a significant amount of taxpayers' money was awarded to the organisation by Scottish Enterprise. Scottish Enterprise is a quango and a question could be asked about the democratic accountability of that awarding decision.

There are over 100 quangos which received more than £14 billion of taxpayers' money from the Scottish Government in 2010/11. Although the majority of this was spent on NHS bodies, which are also quangos, almost 40% is spent on non-NHS quangos. While some quangos may have been abolished, the amount of the Scottish budget spent by non-NHS quangos increased by 50% in only two years between 2008/9 and 2010/11.

In 2008/9, £3.5bn, 11.3% of the £31bn Scottish budget, was allocated to non-NHS quangos. By 2010/11 £5.4bn of the £34.7bn budget was allocated to non-NHS quangos, representing 15.6% of the budget.

While there have been efforts made by the Scottish Government to cut the number of quangos, they have failed because they have been piecemeal and focused on the wrong target. They have looked at the functions of the different bodies and tried to simplify or merge them to reduce waste and bureaucracy. This ignores the real problem. It is not what quangos do, but the way they do it that is the problem.

Reform Scotland is not necessarily arguing that the functions carried by quangos should not continue, nor that the money should not be spent, but rather it must be done in a way that offers transparency and democratic accountability.

We believe all quangos, other than tribunals such as children's panels which perform quasi-judicial roles, should be scrapped. Their functions should then be either transferred to existing Government departments reporting directly to a Minister, or the quango turned into a genuinely autonomous body, which could enter into open and contractual relationships with the Government to undertake certain functions. There would be plenty of scope for functions to be devolved to local government which would deliver the double benefit of enhanced accountability and real devolution.

Scotland needs to end its love affair with quangos and build democratic accountability through transparency. This would introduce greater clarity and openness into the political process and make those who are spending taxpayers' money more accountable to the people.

Alison Payne is research director of Reform Scotland, the independent non-party think tank.