5 Funding
38. The availability of funding seems to be at the
heart of whether the PSA target will be met. The target could
be met through direct funding of EN or through wider policy changes;
in either case any reduction in resources is likely to put SSSIs
at greater risk.
39. Although this year's Departmental budgets have
not yet been announced, it is expected that Defra's budget will
be reduced and that therefore EN's grant-in-aid will not be as
high as it had hoped.[44]
The Government and EN had agreed milestones for improving the
condition of SSSIs based on a certain level of grant-in-aid. EN
told us that, if that aid were to be reduced, the milestones were
likely to be missed.[45]
40. The Minister for Nature Conservation and Fisheries
told us that he did not believe the reduced funding posed a serious
threat to the target and said that, although the target was challenging,
he was confident that it would be met.[46]
We welcome the Minister for
Nature Conservation and Fisheries's confidence that the SSSI target
will be met. However, the PSA target is already very challenging;
we are concerned that if funding for English Nature is reduced
in the 2004 Spending Review, the target will prove impossible
to meet. If, as is expected, English Nature's grant-in-aid is
less than that on which the interim milestones were agreed, English
Nature should report to us on the impact of reduced funding on
work on SSSIs.
44 Q143 Back
45
Ev 43 [English Nature] Back
46
Qq144, 159 Back
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