Conclusions and recommendations
Expenditure and administration
1. It
is unclear how the £80 million underspend in 2013-14 set
out in Defra's written evidence corresponds to the £50 million
underspend set out in Defra's Annual Report and Accounts for the
same period. It is also unclear what the distinction is between
"underspend within the disallowance ringfence" and "disallowance
funding not utilised": in total these two disallowance figures
are worth £53 million which does not agree with the disallowance
underspend of £30 million set out in the Annual Report and
Accounts. Lastly, Defra's written evidence refers to £50
million being transferred from 2013-14 to 2014-15 with Treasury
approval, whereas the Annual Report and Accounts states that £20
million was transferred with Treasury approval. (Paragraph 7)
2. The Department
must be more transparent about where emergency money such as the
winter floods funding is found and what impact this has on the
Department's other priorities and policy delivery. We are not
aware of any reason why the Department could not identify which
specific budgets were reduced, despite our repeated requests for
this information. The Department must provide a clear and detailed
explanation addressing each of the discrepancies we have identified
with specific reference to the underlying data in the Annual Report
and Accounts. (Paragraph 8)
3. Given the breadth
of policy areas covered by the Department, coupled with the unpredictable
nature of emergency events such as flooding and animal and plant
health disease, it is important that a strong case is made to
protect Defra's budget at the next Spending Review. (Paragraph
11)
4. It is frustrating
that our concerns about the lack of clarity surrounding pending
budget reductions have not been addressed. We reiterate our previous
recommendation that the Secretary of State must be clearer about
where budget cuts will fall and what impact this will have on
Defra's policy delivery. We understand that the Secretary of State
makes decisions based on outcomes in line with Defra's priorities,
but the priorities in themselves do not provide a clear guide
as to where the axe will fall. Defra has not provided the clarity
or detail needed to scrutinise the Department's planned expenditure
or policy delivery. (Paragraph 12)
5. With the main reform
provisions of the new Common Agricultural Policy scheme coming
into play in 2015, Defra, the Rural Payments Agency and farmers
are having to adjust to a complex set of new rules. It is therefore
vital that Defra and its agencies ensure that lessons learnt from
problems with payments under the previous CAP schemes are taken
forward effectively so as to minimise disallowance risks in future.
We welcome the CAP Delivery Programme put in place by Defra and
the Rural Payments Agency to prepare for the new rules applying
from 2015 but it is essential that the Department closely monitors
performance and that early action is taken to rectify any problems.
(Paragraph 16)
6. The Secretary
of State and the Permanent Secretary must make it a priority to
review progress and ensure that effective mechanisms, including
IT systems, are in place to provide timely, accurate CAP payments
to farmers. (Paragraph 17)
7. In our Report on
Rural broadband and digital-only services, we gave the Rural Payments
Agency credit for taking a number of important steps to ensure
that those with poor broadband speeds can access its new CAP application
software but, given the difficulties experienced with previous
CAP schemes, and in particular given the variable state of broadband
access in rural areas, we reserved judgment on the effectiveness
of its preparations until they had been tested in action. We also
recommended that the RPA had a contingency plan in place in case
the new CAP application system proved difficult for farmers with
limited broadband capability to use and to enable it to respond
to the software not functioning at the level required. (Paragraph
18)
8. The Department
continues to lag behind the Civil Service average and must increase
its efforts to avoid another repeat of poor staff survey results.
(Paragraph 20)
9. We welcome the
initiatives introduced by the Department to address low staff
satisfaction levels but we agree with the Permanent Secretary
that there is more work to be done to improve the levels of staff
engagement. This is not the first year that Defra's staff survey
results have been disappointing and, in addition to taking responsibility,
senior managers need to commit to taking action to address these
results. (Paragraph 24)
10. When new initiatives
are introduced (for example the '5-A-Year' campaign) they must
be promoted and monitored to ensure that positive results are
being achieved. We invite the Department to set out in its response
to this Report the specific actions it is taking to address low
levels of engagement in leadership and managing change and to
keep us updated with the results of its monitoring of such initiatives.
(Paragraph 25)
Policy and delivery
11. We
commend Defra's diligence in updating farmers on the new CAP rules,
particularly given the challenge of responding to EU developments
at short notice. We also welcome the Secretary of State's engagement
at an early stage with the new EU Commissioner for agriculture
and rural development, demonstrating her commitment to tackling
the complexity of the new scheme. (Paragraph 27)
12. We urge Defra
to continue to press the EU through all available channels to
simplify the CAP and to amend or remove perverse rules such as
the three-crop rule. The Secretary of State must develop effective
alliances with the other Member States which share the UK's concerns
on these issues in order to achieve reform.
(Paragraph 28)
13. We support the
principle that the private sector should help to fund flood defence
schemes but we are concerned that the £600 million target
for external contributions to capital funding over the next six
years will be difficult to meet given the relatively small amounts
of private sector funding that have been secured to date. (Paragraph
33)
14. We invite Defra
to demonstrate how the Partnership Funding model for flood defences
will deliver much greater private sector funding in the future
and to explain the impact on the six-year capital investment programme
if the £600 million external contributions and 10 per cent
efficiency savings targets are not achieved.
(Paragraph 34)
15. In line with
our previous recommendation in our Report on Winter Floods 2013-14,
we strongly recommend that the Government assess the possibility
of a transition to a total expenditure classification for flood
and coastal risk management funding to allow funding to be targeted
according to identified needs and to ensure the optimal standard
of protection is provided by flood defence assets.
(Paragraph 37)
16. We commend the
Department for ensuring that the biodiversity offsetting pilots
are fully evaluated, but we are concerned that implementation
of the Department's biodiversity offsetting proposals has been
significantly delayed past the end of 2013. This suggests that
implementation of the proposals may no longer be a priority for
Defra before the General Election in May. (Paragraph 40)
17. We ask Defra
to set out a renewed timetable for its proposals on biodiversity
offsetting to provide certainty for local communities, landowners,
planning authorities and developers. We recommend that the Secretary
of State announce when a clear, evidence-based policy decision
on biodiversity offsetting will be made.
(Paragraph 41)
18. Despite the Secretary
of State recognising that marine conservation zones are extremely
important, we note that progress towards fulfilling the requirements
of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and forming a network
of such marine protected areas has been slow since the 127 sites
were first recommended to the Government in 2011. (Paragraph 44)
19. We recommend
that the Department demonstrates its commitment to protecting
marine areas by implementing a more ambitious programme of designating
Marine Conservation Zones. Defra must take responsibility for
achieving the goals of the Marine and Coastal Access Act and take
a more strategic approach to evidence gathering to ensure progress
can be made within a reasonable timeframe.
(Paragraph 46)
20. We invite Defra
to set out why the second year of the badger culling pilots in
Gloucestershire failed to meet the licence conditions for the
minimum number of badgers removed. We recommend that Defra clarifies
whether it intends to continue the culling in Gloucestershire
from 2015 onwards and, if so, what changes will be made to ensure
its effectiveness in line with the recommendations of the Chief
Veterinary Officer. We also urge the Government to continue to
monitor and report on the effectiveness of the badger culling
pilots. (Paragraph 49)
21. Defra should
do all it can to condense the indicative timeline set out by the
Commission without compromising the collection of robust field
data necessary to satisfy the relevant requirements. We urge Defra
to publish its own timetable for the development and use of a
cattle vaccine to reassure the public that action is being taken
to combat bovine TB in this way. (Paragraph
52)
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