The news this morning is that the Environment Agency is going to cut 1500 jobs in a bid to cut costs. In response. the mainstream media are beating their breasts and wailing about impending disaster. But there are flood warnings in force! Storm warnings! It's as if the whole metropolitan media elite are leaping to the defence of the public sector workers.
This news does, however, give me an opportunity to link to Inside the Environment Agency, a blog set up by agency insiders to expose the corruption, inefficiency and graft that goes on inside the agency. It's an amazing read and I thoroughly recommend it.
They recently featured a post comparing the agency to its counterparts in other western European countries. I've reproduced the critical table here.
| Environment agency |
Area covered (km2) |
Population(m) | Employed | Staff/'000 km2 | Capita-staff |
Budget £m |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 130,395 | 53 | 11,400 | 87 | 4,649 | £1200 | |
| Germany | 357,021 | 81 | 1,400 | 4 | 57,857 | £84 | |
| France | 674,843 | 65 | 820 | 1 | 79,268 | £540 | |
| Sweden | 449,964 | 9.5 | 530 | 1 | 17,924 | £33 | |
| Austria | 83,855 | 8.5 | 477 | 6 | 17,819 | £36 | |
| Denmark | 43,094 | 5.6 | 450 | 10 | 12,444 | £103 |
While I can accept that there might be different responsibilities, the differences are startling. The possibility that the agency is grossly overstaffed is therefore real and the failure of the mainstream media to consider the possibility makes them look very foolish.