DEFRA’s financial ineptitude

First an apology to the DEFRA minister Hilary Benn, sorry but I though you were a woman, possibly Tony Benn’s wife, thick or what. Anyway that’s not as stupid a mistake to make as your spending plans, at least I can say you have a girls name.

A National Audit Office report published on the 6th March, has found that DEFRA set its budgets based on money it did not have to spend (Enron, anybody?). It seems that DEFRA approved an annual budget of £3.8billion, which just happened to be £230million more than the money allocated by the Treasury, and they didn’t do this once, it has happened for the last two years.

What do they do with money they do not have? Waste it on themselves that’s what! It appears that a survey by the Welsh Assembly has found that the average net farm income from grazing holdings in the uplands fell to just £3000 last year a drop of 63% from the year before. At the same time DEFRA spent £28.3million on the refurbishment of it’s offices in York!