Maria Eagle – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2014-03-31.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 24 March 2014, Official Report, column 31W, on the Environment Agency, whether the review of existing workloads against enforcement priorities and available budgets each area of the Environment Agency is conducting has a minimum percentage cut of workload and expenditure against which it is being assessed.

Dan Rogerson

The Environment Agency was reviewing its baseline total enforcement and legal casework to match them to its budget. The planning assumption had been that baseline funding would reduce from £24m in 2013/14 to £20.5m in 2014/15. As part of this, the Environment Agency was reviewing the current portfolio of enforcement cases to understand the implications of a potential 25% reduction.

However, the announcement in the budget statement of an additional £5m for tackling waste crime means that the Environment Agency is reviewing its planning assumption and associated workload.