Department For Environment Food And Rural Affairs

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was created in June 2001, by the merger of a number of government departments. It co-ordinates and implements policies relating to sustainable development, food and farming, air, water, land and rural communities. This is the annual report of the Select Committee set up to oversee the work of DEFRA and its associated bodies during the 2002. The report notes that the Committee's ability to carry out financial oversight of DEFRA was undermined by the way in which financial data was set out in the Department's 2002 annual report (Cm. 5422, ISBN 0101542224). It recommends that future annual reports should include an analysis of DEFRA's performance against each of its Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets.

Print and web pdfs are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications Web ISBN=9781474146265

The Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) has made some progress in following up the recommendations of the Farming Regulation Task Force, which called for a new approach to the culture of regulation. But farmers consider the rate of improvement continues to be slow. Eighty-four per cent of farmers surveyed believe oversight bodies should co-ordinate their activity more. The cost of complying with regulations is on average around a tenth of a farm's net profit. The NAO estimates that, during 2011-12, nine separate government bodies made at least 114,000 visits to English farms. More than half of these were to carry out disease surveillance and testing and 30 per cent to check for farmers' compliance, at a total cost of £47 million. The bodies inspecting farms often collect the same information separately and there is only limited sharing of intelligence which would help with the better targeting of resources. The current approach will not deliver the scale of change expected by the sector, and contrasts with the progress made in Scotland where oversight bodies have come together to identify redundant activity and cut one in six farm visits. Defra has not collected sufficient data to understand the scale, nature, and effectiveness of English farm oversight activity. It does not routinely collect or analyse data on the overall number and pattern of farm visits, or on levels of compliance across all regulatory regimes. Alternatives to physical inspections might be more widely adopted as a way of improving compliance.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has delivered some value from the £39.3 million spent on its geographic information strategy and activities. However, the Department has not tracked the full cost of geographic information and systems to it or its arm's length bodies, or systematically measured benefits. The Department has been able to identify savings of only approximately £9 million. The figures for costs and benefits are both likely to be underestimates. This lack of financial information means that the NAO cannot determine that value for money has been achieved. Geographic information is a vital resource used by the Department and its arm's length bodies for a wide range of activities including policy making, decision making, day-to-day operations and keeping the public informed. However, neither the original strategy, nor the updated 2009 version, set business targets for cost reduction or quantified the benefits that could be achieved by collaboration or by sharing geographic information and systems. The aim of the strategy is to share geographic information between the Department and its arm's length bodies, as well as make best use of geographic information systems. The Department has had some success in delivering these services, but has not quantified the costs and benefits of geographic information and systems in all its arm's length bodies. Although the Department has put in place appropriate technical governance, strategic governance arrangements could be strengthened. The Department and its arm's length bodies have a good level of specialist skills, but these skills could be better integrated into the business so that the benefits of geographic information are fully realised across the Department.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs annual report and Accounts 2010-11 : (for the year ended 31 March 2011)

Dated May 2007