Defra has announced plans for a major restructure, with more focus on achieving economic growth and resilience for the UK food industry, ahead of the looming post-Brexit deal with the EU.
Permanent secretary Paul Kissack announced the move today, saying that Defra’s structure had been too cumbersome to respond to the government’s key priorities.
Under the restructure he said Defra would be organised into three large teams in the new year, supported by a stronger strategic unit at the centre.
Food and farming will be split into two different divisions, though Kissack stressed that a new strategic policy unit would ensure the groups worked together on key government priorities.
A Water and Marine division will focus on 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 will work toward more resilient landscapes that support profitable and sustainable food production, nature restoration and the wider economy, as well as reducing waste and pollution. The work will be in charge of “bringing to Iife” the government’s Land Use Framework and the Farming Roadmap, both published earlier this year.
Food, Biosecurity and Trade will be charged with enhancing food resilience and security, as well as health, working closely with the food industry – which Kissack stressed was “the country’s largest manufacturing sector”. The division will also be tasked with strengthening international trade and biosecurity.
Announcing the changes on LinkedIn Kissack, who joined Defra in October last year having been chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “Every week at Defra I have the privilege of leading talented, expert colleagues working tirelessly, with partners and stakeholders, to deliver improved outcomes for people across the country.
“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.”
The changes will be brought in early next year, the Defra boss said.
He added: “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.”
Pointing out that Defra was now 25 years old and overdue for modernisation, he said: “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.
“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.”
A senior source told The Grocer that the “catalyst” for the changes was the looming summit between EU leaders and Andy Burnham next Friday.
Burnham has promised the food industry will be at the heart of the post-Brexit trade ‘reset’ which will see many changes of function for Defra, including some key responsibilities passing back to Europe.
“Assuming the Andy Burnham agreement is reached, that will significantly change quite a bit of Defra workloads,” said the source.
“Previously, Defra has had many more areas and has been too thinly spread, it makes a great deal of sense.
“But it is interesting that they are splitting food and farming into two different areas. It remains to be seen what that could mean, because there is a huge overlap between food and farming and we don’t want to go back to the days of the farming industry and food being in separate camps.”
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