Defra begins quango cut-backs

Defra Secretary Caroline Spelman announced the demise of the CRC and the merger of the Animal Health Agency and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in a statement on Tuesday.

The CRC, which has a budget of £6m funded by Defra, was established in October 2006.  

“Ministers will lead rural policy from within my Department; I have accordingly decided to abolish the Commission for Rural Communities as an independent body,” Mrs Spelman said.

“The Government believes policy advice should be carried out by Departments, not arms length bodies.  Defra will, therefore, reinforce its capacity to undertake rural work within the Department.”

She said a strengthened Rural Communities Policy Unit will work across Government to ensure that the interests of rural communities are fully reflected in policies and programmes. 

She paid tribute to the ‘commitment and quality of work’ undertaken by the commission, its staff, Commissioners and its chairman, the Revd Dr Stuart Burgess CBE, over the past four years.  

She added that merging Animal Health and the VLA would allow Defra to ‘bring together services, expertise and scientific capability on animal health’.

“It will improve our resilience in delivering important services, including our animal disease emergency response capability and science requirements for animal health. In resource-constrained times, the merger will enable the agencies to create more efficient ways of working, reduce the cost and bureaucracy needed to manage the interfaces between these agencies, Defra and the devolved administrations, and their customers,” she said.

She said the merger would ‘go ahead shortly, with as little disruption to staff and customers as possible’. A single chief executive will be appointed for the new agency this summer, and will take responsibility for ‘fully integrating’ the agencies by the autumn.

In the meantime, both agencies will continue to be led by their chief executives and senior teams.

Mrs Spelman said she had made it a priority in her first month in the job to examine ‘critically’ Defra’s ‘very big network’ of over 80 arms-length bodies.

“In line with the coalition Government’s commitments, I am applying the ‘three Government tests’ to each of our bodies: does it perform a technical function? does it need to be politically impartial? does it act independently to establish facts?” she said.

“Following the principle that Government ‘should do only those things which only Government can do’, we are examining how parts of the Defra network’s assets could be marketed or be run better through the voluntary sector, while protecting key Defra outcomes.”

She added that further announcements will follow, against the principles outlined above.

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