One year since the election landslide of May Day 1997, and another landslide of at least 192 different policy reviews, task forces, advisory groups -- and one Royal Commission -- has been set in motion by Tony Blair and his ministers. Not been invited yet to participate in this massive expansion of the advisory and policy review process beyond the usual Westminster and departmental circles? It's probably because you fall into one of those categories of traditional Labour supporters that are less favoured in the Brave New Pluralist Britain of today.

As part of a review of the various reviews and advisory bodies set up since last May for the new think tank, Catalyst, I carried out a survey of the membership of 30 leading task forces and advisory groups.* It gives an indication of who's in and who's out in the New Britain. The short answer is that if you want to get on with New Labour, and in particular if you want to get on one of the new advisory or policy review bodies, the old rules for ready access to the corridors of power still apply: Be a man, be middle aged and be rich (or at any rate, be in business or the private sector).

Much has been made of the Blair government's commitment to inclusiveness and pluralism -- and not only by members of the government itself. Writing on "The Blair paradox" in the current issue of Prospect, David Marquand declares himself "still perplexed by the Blair project", but rejects the criticism that it stands for the continuation of Thatcherism by other means. His first of four "crucial differences" between the new regime and the old is that "Thatcherism was exclusionary; New Labour is inclusionary."

Some of the rhetoric is certainly inclusionary. Frank Dobson, for example, has spoken of wanting to involve "not just the usual suspects" in his NHS efficiency task force. "I want nurses who are still nursing, surgeons who are still cutting, people who are still pushing trolleys or cooking meals," he said. The defence minister, George Robertson, in launching the strategic defence review, pledged that he "wanted it to be open and inclusive, unlike the secretive and partisan reviews of the past". And, earlier this year, the DETR advertised more than 200 part-time posts on bodies such as housing action trusts, regional development agencies and advisory groups in an attempt to involve more people from "under-represented groups".

"I want to see our public bodies truly reflect Britain as it is today," said the environment minister, Angela Eagle, at the time. "This is an excellent opportunity for people from all walks of life to come forward for appointment. I . . . particularly urge more women, ethnic minorities, disabled and younger people to consider seriously making an application."

Yet the figures from the survey of task force and advisory body membership suggest that those "under-represented groups" remain as under-represented as ever:
Only a little over one in four of the members of these bodies are women
Less than 3% of the membership is black or Asian -- and more than half of the bodies do not have any black or Asian members at all
Of 165 people for whom age details were readily obtainable, only three are aged under 30
Representatives of business and the private sector account for almost a third of all members
There are more representatives of business and the private sector than there are women
There are five times as many representatives of business and the private sector as there are of trade unions

Table: Membership of 30 leading task forces and advisory groups
Men 324 (72%)
Women 125 (28%)
Business/private sector 129 (29%)
Trade unions 26 (6%)
Total membership 449

Eighteen of the 30 bodies surveyed include no trade union representatives among their members at all; in contrast, only six are without at least one representative from business and the private sector. Significantly, among the bodies which exclude any trade union representation is the Panel 2000 Task Force, set up to promote Britain's image abroad -- the government of the country which gave the world trade unionism clearly thinks that it has no place in the image it wishes to project to the world at the onset of the new millenium.

This limitation of trade union or worker involvement is matched by an even more marked absence of citizens as consumers -- whether of private goods or public services. There are no parent representatives on the school standards task force, no tenants on the Housing Sounding Board, no claimants on the New Deal bodies, no pensioners on the long-term care commission.

Instead, we have a proliferation of entrepreneurs and "experts" -- a pluralism of a sort, in the sense that membership of the various bodies has been extended to include representatives of the new Blairite establishment from beyond Westminster and Whitehall. Pity about the rest of us, though.

Government by task force, Catalyst pamphlet 2