Buckinghamshire-based Chartered Accountants, The Fish Partnership, are warning farmers to be vigilant following the announcement of cuts to the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs’ (Defra’s) budget.
Earlier this month Defra announced it would have to make an additional £83m of cuts to its 2015/16 budget, as part of the Government’s plans to make savings of £3bn across non-protected departments.
These new cuts amount to nearly 4 per cent of Defra’s budget, which has already been significantly reduced from £3bn in 2011 to £2.3bn this year.
Paul Laird, Director at The Fish Partnership and a specialist in the financial affairs of farmers, said that he fears these cuts could be passed on to farmers, who might be forced to pay for services once provided by Defra.
“Defra has seen massive cuts in the last few years and is rapidly becoming under-staffed and under-resourced.
“My main concern is that the costs of many of the services once provided by Defra will be passed on to the farming community instead.
“Farmers need to remain vigilant on this issue and carefully monitor where the cuts are made to ensure that they don’t end up receiving the bill.”
Mr Laird’s concerns are shared by Meurig Raymond, President of the National Farmers Union, who recently said: “The big concern, with so many demands on Defra, we could end up with more demands for cost recovery for animal health.
“At a time when the industry is suffering very badly on output values; that would be difficult.”
