Around 100 Environment Agency (EA) roles are to be cut by the end of September, according to the GMB union.

A statement released by the union yesterday claimed that the staff will be cut from a number of departments and said that the cuts are ‘utterly ludicrous’ considering the effect of the floods over winter.

The departments affected by the cuts, according to GMB are: Environment and Business; Operations; Corporate Services; Evidence; Deputy Chief Executive; and Communications.

Budget reductions continue to affect EA

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced in 2013 that for the year 2015/16, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), which funds the EA, was to have its spending budget cut by 9.6 per cent. The EA subsequently estimated that around 1,550 jobs would be lost in 2014, reducing its workforce by 13 per cent.

Following the 2014 budget changes, additional funding of £270 million was given to the EA between 2013-15 to ‘repair and maintain vital flood and coastal defences’. In response to this, the EA modified its estimated reduction in staffing levels to around 350 by October 2014.

In November, Osborne confirmed that a further 15 per cent would be cut from Defra’s day-to-day budget for 2015/16, with an estimated £100 million reduction every year until 2020.

In March this year, the Mirror reported that the EA had spent £14 million settling redundancy packages for 260 of its staff between 2013-15. The Mirror compared this to the amount spent on flood risk plans, which, at £8.9 million, was £5 million less than the staff pay-offs.

‘Rather than cutting jobs the EA should be properly funded’

Justin Bowden, GMB National Officer, has criticised the planned job cuts, saying that the damage caused by flooding in the winter shows the need for a fully functioning agency.

He said: “Cutting any jobs at the EA is utterly ludicrous as the recent floods have shown us. The EA announcement that up to 100 jobs will go by 30 September 2016 will affect all the services it provides to the public including its ability to respond when storms and floods hit our shores.

“The government, who are driving these cuts, has clearly forgotten the devastation caused by the recent winter floods in 2013/14 and 2015/16, which affected thousands of families. The public, however, have not forgotten and neither have the GMB members who worked day and night to try and protect our towns and cities.

“This is a backward step. Rather than cutting jobs the EA should be properly funded by central government so that it can employ more people now there is an increased chance of large winter storms which cause wide-spread damage and destruction.”

In January, the union called for the EA to be exempt from making any contributions to the 15 per cent cut in the Defra budget in order to stop the agency’s ‘exercise of seeking volunteers for redundancy’.