Every week at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs I have the privilege of leading talented, expert colleagues working tirelessly, with partners and stakeholders, to deliver improved outcomes for people across the country. And we’re making progress.
But sometimes I find the way we are organised as a department makes it harder to achieve the outcomes that ministers and the public rightly expect of us. So early next year we will take on a new shape. We are going to organise ourselves differently – fully integrating our environmental, economic and resilience ambitions in three large groups:
Water and Marine – reforming the water system to ensure safe and secure water for households and businesses; delivering clean rivers, lakes and seas; enhancing resilience to drought and flooding; and ensuring thriving and productive seas, including through our fishing industry.
Farming, Land and Nature – shaping more resilient landscapes that support profitable and sustainable food production, nature restoration and the wider economy, as well as reducing waste and pollution. Through the work of this group we will bring to life the Government’s Land Use Framework and the Farming Roadmap, both published earlier this year.
Food, Biosecurity and Trade – enhancing our national food resilience and security, and health, working closely with the food industry – the country’s largest manufacturing sector – as well as strengthening international trade and biosecurity.
These groups will be supported by a stronger strategic centre of the department, ensuring that everything we do is aligned with our overall environmental, economic and resilience strategies – including the 2025 Environmental Improvement Plan – and our international work on global ecosystems. The strategic centre will also make sure all our work is supported by world-leading science and analysis, and that we continue to champion rural communities, as well as leading the government’s overall work on climate adaptation.
Defra was created 25 years ago, merging the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with the environmental parts of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions. A quarter of a century on, it is surely time for us to integrate more fully our environmental and economic policy work around the principal systems we are responsible for – systems which provide the very foundations of our way of life, and our security.
My thanks to Defra staff and stakeholders who have responded so warmly to these planned changes over recent days. If we get this right, I believe we will be even better placed to achieve our ambitious outcomes in the years ahead – and truly realise Defra’s vision: ‘restoring nature, supporting growth, enhancing resilience’.
