Flooding fears prompted by Defra cuts
Defra has said it will do its “utmost” to avoid cutting key services after leaked emails today revealed the department is having to make millions of pounds in savings.
It is struggling to cope with the extra administrative costs of changing the system of European farm subsidies last year and the unexpected burden of paying for bird flu preparations, thought to be about £50 million.
Letters leaked to The Guardian today suggest the department, which deals with environmental projects including flood risk management and conservation, is being asked to make cuts of £200 million over the next year.
One email from Barbara Young, chief executive of the Environment Agency, informs senior staff they will need to find £14.9 million in savings in flood risk management.
This prompted immediate concern, with the Liberal Democrats warning such cuts were “an incredibly foolish false economy when we know that storms are becoming more extreme and flood risk is increasing due to global warming”.
A further £12.5 million is expected to be saved in environmental protection and conservation, while the agency has also been asked to cut £800,000 in fisheries.
“Ideally we would have wanted these reductions to have arisen from our ongoing programme to identify efficiencies and improved productivity – more, better, faster with less,” Ms Young writes in the email.
“But the scale of the reductions are over and above our planned efficiency programme and the fact that they have to be achieved in just over half the financial year will mean that some of the reductions will involve delaying things we would really have preferred not to delay.
“However, we do have time, in the face of further reductions in 2007-8 and beyond, to up the pace on our work to identify real efficiencies in a systematic way so that some of the delayed work can be reconsidered.”
Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne condemned attempts to cut back on the maintenance of Britain’s flood defences, and on the flood awareness service that prepares those people most at risk.
“These cuts fly in the face of common sense and the best judgment of the environment food and rural affairs select committee, whose report on the Environment Agency called for increased flood defence spending to £750 million a year by 2011-2015,” he said.
He warned the cuts were needed because of “incompetence” in the way the single farm payments system was managed, but said they should be paid for from the contingency reserve, “not key budget lines for environmental spending”.
However, a Defra spokesman insisted it was “sensible” for all government departments to review spending on a regular basis, to ensure the most efficient use of taxpayers’ money.
“We are doing our outmost to avoid cuts that will jeopardise important environmental projects,” he added.
