The State of... Defra's Budget

The Chancellor's announcement on Monday that Defra along with four other departments had agreed their budget settlements took most people by surprise. 48 hours on and no further details have appeared. It seems we shall have to wait for the full Spending Review announcement on 25 November.

What we do know is that planned cuts across the five departments average 30% and it is difficult to conclude anything other than this will lead to a massive reduction in government capacity to meet its environmental commitments.

This would be bad news for nature and for people.

The Chancellor stated that if it didn't provide economic security, national security or extend opportunity it would be cut. Given that the natural environment underpins our prosperity, you could just about fit Defra's work any of these categories. The natural world when properly protected can support our economic security and expand opportunity for people through health and wellbeing. The Natural Capital Committee eloquently showed that the UK is running an environmental deficit and the Budget settlement will make things worse.

Below, I outline analysis that the RSPB's economists have done to understand implications.

What is being cut?

Capital budgets are protected. For Defra this largely means flood defence infrastructure but does not include all the running costs and other day to day expenditure on flood risk mitigation.

It is day to day spending on things like grants and projects and people that is being cut.

What cuts have already been made?

If we compare total resource budgets in 2009/10 and 2015/16 and adjust for inflation we find that the Department of Justice and Defra come out joint losers on -34% in total resource spend.

What cuts are to come?

All we know is that the group of departments which have agreed cuts have cuts averaging 30% so we use a 30% cut as the basis. The announcement said the cuts would be over four years but the OBR say that government spending is projected to increase in real terms in 2020/21. So our economists have adjusted for inflation for the full cut to 2019/20 as it provides more conservative figures.

Based upon a 30% cut from 2015/16 happening in 2019/20 the full impact would be a real terms cut of 57% in Defra's budget since 2009/10. Given that Defra was the hardest cut last time, unless that 30% average hides some very significant discrepancies, then Defra is currently on target to be the biggest loser.

In return for heavily slashing the environment budget the government saves 0.1% from it's overall budget. The Defra budget was never large, though its responsibilities are, so little can be saved from abandoning environmental obligations.

The impact on staff numbers could be quite significant. Between 2010 and March 2015 Defra lost 6,806 full time equivalent staff from its family of bodies. The next few images describe those cuts visually.

The first two are taken from published Defra reports. In the third image, the team have calculated the impact of a 1% real terms cut on staff numbers in each department over the last 5 years and projected that forward with the expected cuts. They used only the cash terms cut of 30% to estimate future losses as it is the more conservative bound of a rough estimate. Even so the total job losses over this decade would be over 14,000 from the Defra family cutting their staff resource in half.

It is hard not to feel a personal kinship with all of those people who lost their jobs. Environmental professionals bicker constantly but I find that whatever they work on and whether they work in the private, public or charitable sectors one thing binds us all. None of us got into it for the money. So when I see job losses of that scale I see a massive loss of highly trained people who committed their lives to protecting something bigger than themselves. We need all shoulders to the wheel and when people slip off the loss is not only personal but to the cause.

How can these cuts be mitigated?

To mitigate the impacts of these cuts, ministers have pointed to the possibilities of cost recuperation (charging) and savings in back office efficiency. Whilst these are important and useful they will not be significant enough to prevent huge losses to service.

Our calculations suggest that back office savings in addition to those already made are unlikely to be significant while income generation ambition would need to be raised dramatically. For example, last year Natural England made about £14 million from other activities whilst its government grant was £179 million. If NE is squeezed by ring-fencing elsewhere then it might have to increase that £14 million seven-fold quite rapidly. Moving from £14 million to nearly £100 million a year will take time at least and the interim period could be painful.

 What are the impacts on services?

I try to stay positive and look to what can be done but sometimes it is worth being frank. It's clear that Defra is already struggling to meet its existing obligations with the budget it has...

...this year the Supreme Court has had to force the government to scrap its air quality plans and start again.

...WWF and the Angling trust recently filed for a judicial review against the government for failing to meet its statutory obligations towards Nature 2000 sites under the Water Framework Directive

...and as illustrated by the State of Birds publication yesterday, wildlife continues to decline.

If the budget is squeezed further it is hard to see how the government could make good on its ambitious manifesto promises for the natural world. The sustained rhetoric about restoring the natural environment in a generation will increasingly seem incredible considering the growing mismatch between ambition and resources.

What needs to be done?

If the Government wants to stay true to its environmental commitments, over the next three weeks it is now faced with a simple choice: either re-think the budget decision or, if these cuts do have to go ahead, ring-fence spending within other departments for environmental protection.