The amount of people being made redundant at the Environment Agency (EA) due to budget cuts will be less than expected, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) highlighted in its response to an EFRA Committee report.

In January, Parliament’s Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee voiced ‘concerns’ over the impact that impending budget cuts to Defra will have on its ability to deliver its work.

In its ‘Ninth Report of Session 2013–14: Departmental Annual Report 2012-13’, the committee found that despite Defra being one of the smallest government departments, it ‘faced among the most substantial budget cuts, which are set to continue up to 2016’.

Indeed, Defra’s budget has been cut by £500 million since the 2010 Spending Review, and will face another reduction of £300 million in the years up to 2015–16.

In the face of recent flooding, the horsemeat scandal, and ash dieback disease, the committee warned that Defra’s ability to ‘respond to emergencies such as these must be protected’.

It called on government to issue responses to a number of questions and recommendations including:

• what programmes and policies will be reduced or ended to meet the required budget savings;
• its position in relation to reported reductions in staff at the Environment Agency, the future of Fera and reduced activity in the waste sector; and
• calls for an earlier implementation of the charge for single-use plastic bags (which will come into effect in England in 2015), as well as the inclusion of biodegradable bags in the levy until fully biodegradable bags are developed.

Defra response

Areas of reduction

Addressing the question of which programmes and policies will be reduced or ended to meet budget savings, Defra stated that it will make ‘significant savings’ through:

• reducing Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) activities in areas of waste management ‘where businesses are better placed to act and there is no clear market failure’ (as outlined in Resource Minister Dan Rogerson’s letter to the industry);
• making ‘efficiencies and changes in operating models’ such as changes in the way shared services for Defra, the Environment Agency and other network bodies are delivered by moving to a joint venture;
• restructuring and making efficiencies in the back office at Natural England;
• negotiating contracts in areas such as waste Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) and the Marine Management Organisation Royal Navy Contract;
• ‘reprioritising’ Rural Development Plans for England (RDPE) during the transition year as schemes wind down prior to the launch of a new programme in 2015 will also create savings; and
• better prioritising evidence investment.

Defra states that by taking this approach, it is ‘ensuring it maintains essential capability and keeps the impact of the budget reductions to a minimum’.

EA job losses

Looking to the job losses at the EA and the impact of the department’s ‘reduced activity in the waste sector’, the government response states that the agency received additional funding of £130 million in 2013/14 and 2014/15 and a further £140 million over 2014/15 and 2015/16 following Budget 2014 to ‘repair and maintain vital flood and coastal defences following last winter's floods’.

It is also ‘reducing the deficit and delivering savings’ through improved working practices, as it moved from a three tier (national, regional and area) to a two tier (national and area) structure last month.

As such, it is expected that job losses at the EA will be less than expected (originally estimated at around 1,550 jobs). The response reads: ‘In view of this additional money, the timetable and approach to the Environment Agency's change programme and future staff numbers is under review.

‘The Environment Agency will consult with its staff and unions on its plans for the future once these are clearer. However, following the additional funding, reductions in overall job numbers will be lower than previously thought and by October 2014 it is likely that job numbers will be approximately 10,250 an estimated reduction of around 350 on current staffing levels.

‘The planned reduction in posts necessary to ensure the agency has an affordable business structure will not affect its ability to respond to flooding and the additional money will mean no reduction in the Agency's flood and coastal risk management job numbers.’

The department will also allocate an additional £5 million to ‘waste enforcement initiatives to tackle waste crime’ (as announced in the Budget 2014). Defra said that this ‘reflects government commitment to tackling this serious problem’.

It added that Defra will work with HM Treasury and the Environment Agency to ‘ensure the funding is targeted effectively’. The response continued: ‘We want to see the legitimate waste and resource industry flourish: that means taking a tough approach with those who deliberately flout the rules.’

Plastic bag charge

Responding to EFRA’s ‘disappointment’ that England’s plastic bag charge will not come into effect in England until 2015 ‘despite evidence of its success in reducing plastic carrier bag usage in other parts of the UK and Ireland’, and its calls for biodegradable bags to be included in the charge (until fully biodegradable bags are available), Defra said: ‘We agree that good progress in reducing plastic bag usage has been made through charging schemes in other parts of the UK. In October 2015, the government will bring into force a [five pence] charge on all single-use plastic carrier bags in England. The charge will not come into effect until 2015 because of the time needed to prepare secondary legislation and work on details, such as exemptions, and the time needed for retailers to prepare for the change.

‘The charge in England will not include biodegradable plastic bags that meet certain standards. Standards for these bags will need to be worked up with the industry. We are encouraging the development of better biodegradable bags to provide consumers with options for those times when they do need a bag… We will legislate for the biodegradable bag exemption once a suitable bag is developed and standards are set’.

Defra has said it has recently contracted four studies into plastic bags: two into decreasing the environmental impact of plastics polymers and two into ‘economically viable methods for separating biodegradable bags from the waste stream’. This work will run in parallel to the work on a charge.

Read the EFRA Committee report or Defra's full response to it.