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£70m to axe staff at Defra as 500 recruited
Mary Creagh
The Government department charged with looking after the environment has spent nearly £70m making people redundant – at the same time as recruiting another 500 staff.
Nearly 1,800 people have left the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and its agencies since the General Election, at a cost of £69.9m in redundancy payments.
The revelation has led Labour to claim the Government is “out of touch with the rural economy” and that the money could have been better spent on flood defences or jobs for young people.
The chairman of the select committee monitoring the department has also said she will continue keeping a close eye on performance after admitting the amount seems “quite high”.
But Defra, the most important arm of Government for many Yorkshire farmers, insists it will recoup the costs for most of the redundancies within a year as it is forced to cut spending as part of the Government’s drive to reduce the deficit.
The full cost of the cull of staff has been revealed by Ministers in answer to parliamentary questions. Most of the pay-offs have come from a jobs cull at Defra itself, the Environment Agency watchdog and Natural England, which manages wildlife habitats.
Defra and its executive agencies had the biggest bill, paying nearly £29m in redundancy payments, with 722 people leaving on voluntary deals. The Environment Agency has spent £27.5m and Natural England £10.9m.
But some eyebrows will be raised by the discovery that while the cull of jobs has been going on, 584 staff have also been taken on despite a civil service recruitment freeze.
Shadow Environment Secretary Mary Creagh, MP for Wakefield, said: “Defra Ministers have spent £70m on making people redundant since the General Election, money that could have been spent building flood defences or creating jobs for young people to improve the natural environment.
“The Tories have a plan for cuts, but no plan for the environment.”
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman was one of the first Ministers to agree her department’s share of cuts in last year’s Spending Review, accepting a reduction of about almost one third in Defra’s spending power.
The deal, which means deeper cuts than many other departments, is likely to result in thousands of jobs being cut by the time of the next election.
Several quangos are also being abolished to save costs, with legislation to axe the Commission for Rural Communities and the Agricultural Wages Board currently going through Parliament. The Government has also announced that the Environment Agency and Natural England would be “substantially reformed”.
Although the department claimed the spending settlement had allowed it to protect spending on flood defences, in practice many schemes – including in Leeds, York and Thirsk – have had to be shelved because capital spending has been severely cut.
Defra said: “Following the Spending Review there is a requirement across the Defra network to reduce our admin budgets by a third. The exits that have taken place since May 2010... have delivered value for money as the average payback for a Voluntary Exit Scheme package is achieved within in a year.
“A recruitment freeze is in place. However, any appointments made during this period are governed by Cabinet Office rules and limited to business critical roles.”
But Thirsk and Malton MP Anne McIntosh, who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee, said: “It does seem quite a high amount for a department that itself doesn’t employ many people compared to some others. Their record on manpower things is very poor.”
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george19
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 06:52 AMTypical TORIES,pay enhanced redundancies to their cronies,and expect the public to only go on 15 minute strikes,I wonder how many redundant personnel have been re-employed in the same jobs.
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