The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have been forced to reduce staff numbers to cope with increasing budget cuts.

In this year's report, the department say they are “continuing to transform in order to reduce costs, improve capability and resilience and develop better integrated systems to support delivery”.

The report details the following findings:

  • The total number of staff at the department dropped from 22,875 in 2015, to 21,964 for this year, meaning a reduction of 911.

  • 232 staff have been removed from the water and flood risk management department, despite the large number of floods during last winter. Last year 9,556 were employed in the sector, but for 2016 that number fell to 9,324.
  • Around 600 staff were let go from executive agencies.
  • The only increase in staff numbers was staff employed on capital projects, which increased from 1189 in 2015 to 1299 for 2016.

    • Transforming the department

    The British government announced in its Spending Review and Autumn Statement in late 2015, that DEFRA would be facing another 15% cut in its budget before 2020.

    Permanent Secretary of the DEFRA Clare Moriarty said the department is continuing to transform into “a modern, streamlined organisation”.

    We are building on our strengths in open data to become a truly open organisation: focused on our customers and increasingly local.

    Brexit

    Following on from Britain’s decision to leave the EU, Moriarty says Brexit will “have profound implications for DEFRA in the years ahead” but her department will “continue to deliver successfuly in a new context”.

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