The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in Britain. Concordats set out agreed frameworks for co-operation between it and the Scottish Government[1] and the Cabinet of the National Assembly for Wales,[2] which have devolved responsibilities for these matters in their respective nations. Defra also leads for the UK at the EU on agricultural, fisheries and environment matters and in other international negotiations on sustainable development and climate change.
It was formed in June 2001 under the leadership of Margaret Beckett, when the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) was merged with part of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) and with a small part of the Home Office. The department was created after the perceived failure of MAFF to deal adequately with an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease. The department had about 9 000 core personnel, as of January 2008.[3] The department's main building is Nobel House in Smith Square, SW1.
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After the 2005 General Election, the Ministry was restructured, with one fewer Ministers of State and one further Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State but this reverted after a reshuffle in May 2006. The current make-up of the department's ministers is:[4]
Helen Ghosh is the current Permanent Secretary. The Permanent Secretary is Head of the Department and also Principal Accounting Officer. She has personal responsibility for the overall organisation, management and staffing of the Department and for Department-wide procedures in financial and other matters.
The executive agencies are:[5]
The key delivery partners are:[7]
A full list of departmental delivery and public bodies may be found on the Defra website.[9]
Policies for environment, food and rural affairs are delivered in the regions by Defra's executive agencies and delivery bodies, in particular Natural England, the Rural Payments Agency, Animal Health, the Marine and Fisheries Agency and the Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate. Increasingly, a range of policies are communicated locally by Government Offices for English Regions.[10]
Defra provides grant aid to the following flood and coastal erosion risk management operating authorities:
Defra's overarching aim is sustainable development, which is defined as "development which enables all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life without compromising the quality of life of future generations." The Secretary of State wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister that he saw Defra’s mission as enabling a move toward what the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has called "one planet living".[11]
Under this overarching aim, Defra has five strategic priorities:[12]
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