Agency responds to ‘whistleblower’ criticism

The Agency rejected accusations made by ‘whistleblower website’Inside the Environment Agency that similar European agencies including Germany, France and Denmark, managed more duties with less staff on a lower budget.

On the website, a number of other matters concerning the Agency are discussed. letsrecycle.com has not been able to verify the accuracy or otherwise of the claims made on insidetheenvironmentagency.co.uk.

Responding to the comments, an Agency spokeswoman said that comparing the Environment Agency to its European counterparts was meaningless.

The anonymous author writing under the pseudonym Henry claims that there is a culture of internal waste of tax payer and licence payer funds, abuse of working/flexi time and annual leave by staff members, mismanagement by senior and line managers, and victimisation and harassment of licence holders and operators at the Agency.

He added that the Environment Agency currently employs an estimated 11,400 staff (11,376 according to its annual report) and had an annual budget in 2012/13 of 1.2 billion.

In comparison, the author claims, its German equivalent UBA employs some 1,400 staff and operates with a total budget of 84 million while the French agency employs just 820 staff and has an overall budget of 540 million.

Overstaffed

He wrote: Going by these statistics, it would appear that the Environment Agency is overstaffed by around 9,000 and has a budget that appears to be 0.5-1 billion too much.

This, along with what I and others have experienced, highlights the dire need for an in-depth analysis and review of the Environment Agency with the aim of restructuring the body to ensure that tax payer money is being spent effectively.

But, refuting the accusations, an Environment Agency spokeswoman said: Different Environment Agencies do vastly different roles across the world. This comparison is somewhat meaningless.

Our budget for 2014/15 will be confirmed shortly. However, we are likely to reduce staff numbers from the previous forecast of around 11,250 at the end of March 2014 to around 9,700 by October 2014. We will then aim to keep numbers broadly at that level through to March 2015 dependent of course on future funding. We will only achieve this by looking across the whole organisation at our ways of working and structures.

The Environment Agency in October that it anticipated 1,400 jobs would be cut between now and 2016 although no final decision has been made (see letsrecycle.com story).

Budget cuts

Putting some perspective on the issue, Steve Lee, chief executive of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, said he was more concerned about budget cuts at the Agency. Mr Lee was formerly a top official within the Agency where he served as head of waste policy before taking up his CIWM role 10 years ago.

Asked whether there were grounds for restructuring the Agency, Mr Lee told letsrecycle.com said he had serious concerns about the impending budget cuts, rather than what the organisation was currently spending.

He said: I am not really worried so much about the culture inside the Environment Agency, but I have serious concerns about the impending cuts and savings in the Agency. We cannot afford to make cuts where there are life and death issues such as coastal flooding or responses to flooding. It would be difficult for them to make cuts in these areas.

We do know there will be considerable cuts in 2014 and that will have a much bigger impact on the waste industry in terms of how we tackle waste crime, but so far there has been no indication at all where these cuts will fall. There are massive changes ahead.