EA job losses greater than expected

The Environment Agency (EA) has confirmed that around 1,550 jobs are to be lost in 2014, ahead of next year’s government budget cuts. This is higher than the previous estimate of 1,400 job losses.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the EA said: “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.”

If the job losses go ahead as expected, the EA will have reduced its workforce by 13 per cent.

The agency, an executive non-departmental public body funded by the Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Afffairs (Defra), is responsible for ‘protecting and improving’ the environment. Areas that fall under the EA’s jurisdiction include: waste regulation, climate change, conservation and ecology, flood and coastal risk management, and contaminated land.

Earlier this year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, announced that for the year 2015/16, Defra was to have its spending budget cut by 9.6 per cent, despite members of the waste and resources management sector writing to the Minister to urge him to ensure that funding for waste crime prevention (under the remit of the Environment Agency (EA), funded by Defra) did not become a ‘casualty’ of the Spending Review.

Details on which departments these job losses will hit have not yet been released.

Read more about Defra’s budget cuts.