Ainsworth calls for Environment Agency to pay back bonuses

After some criticism for failing to be sufficiently robust about the Government and Environment Agency's response to the floods and investment in flood defences, Peter Ainsworth MP has intervened to attack the bonuses paid to 'flood protection chiefs'.  Nine executives including Labour peer Baroness Young received bonuses of 10% or more.  The Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment said that executives and directors of the Agency had failed to protect people's homes:

"The Environment Agency recognised there were serious deficiencies in flood defences. Their failure has been in not preventing the Government cutting their budget and take warnings seriously enough."

The Telegraph has the full story.

1pm update: Further comment from Ainsworth:

“In the end the responsibility for budget cuts and problems with the response to the flooding lie firmly with the Government. However, if I worked at the Environment Agency in charge of flooding and I had just received a £24,000 bonus I would donate the money to the flood victims. It would be a nice gesture and would be well received but in the end the decision has to be made by the staff and their consciences.”

Comments

[TomTom]

It would be better to ask why there are no engineers on the board of the Environment Agency; why the Flood Simulation Exercise of 2004 did not lead to proper preparation; and why rivers are not dredged. Is Ainsworth on top of his brief or just another part-timer ?

[Don Collier]

Good find Peter.
There are a lot of hard working and loyal people in the EA who I believe are being let down by their board. It amazes me that the Baroness Young has not managed to get the much needed Money from the Government. Her own comments show the EA needs at least £20 million more a year.
Year after year I have watched them cuddle up to the Fib Dems and the Labour party as they put back schemes that are needed but don't have the funds for.
Year after year I have stood beside my Conservative colleagues fight for more money, for more defenses and have seen them beaten back by the Lib Lab pact on the flood defense committees. Year after year we watch the Labour house building policy cram more houses onto the flood planes and whilst these are defended against floods, they increase the threat to the existing properties which have old and worn out defenses in need of the extra money.
If Baroness Young and her board members had been doing their job properly they would not have shirked their responsibility and would have exposed this massive under-spend BEFORE the disaster not lamely afterwards.
This could happen any where in the UK and I feel for those in England that have suffered because the EA board appears to have been at the Labour trough.

[HF]

Finally 9 days later we get a media appearance (outside of the Commons) from Mr Ainsworth on the floods....

Where was Mr Ainsworth in the media 7,8,9 days ago? Mr Huhne the Lib Dems Environment spokesman was in the media and seen on tv and heard on radio, but Mr Ainsworth our shadow Environment minister was less visible.

Why was Mr Huhne more successful than Mr Ainsworth? Is it because he researched the issues and then went out and held the Govt to account? Mr Cameron was lambasted in the media for going to Rwanda, but where was Mr Ainsworth at that vital time?

Can we afford shadow ministers that are outperformed by their Lib Dem equivalents?

It is time for Conservative Home to publish a "media mentions" weekly report on our shadow cabinet ministers.

To support my case, a Google search finds "chris huhne" and "floods" "2007" has twice as many mentions as "peter ainsworth" and "floods" "2007".

A 2 : 1 ratio seems to support my recall of them in recent media.

[fibbingdems]

The horrible Hune might be in the papers loads but what does he bring to the party.

In this case a wet defence of the Environment agency when everyone else is blaming them. The more the Fib Dems are in the media the more their Fibbing ways are exposed........ bring it on

[George Hinton]

I find it just a bit sour tasting for Civil Servants to be given bonuses for pushing paper around their desks, and actually turning up to do their jobs.
The leadership of the Environment Agency have been singularly inept and most certainly have not performed at all, given the recent floods and the failings that that has exposed.
I find it yet another sign of the corruptness that lies at the heart of our government and administration that apparatchiks are deemed worthy of a bonus for turning up at their desks and doing a rather undemanding job. These people are place-men/women, rewarded by a corrupt government with a taxpayers funded job, pension and perks. As in all such roles the individual is virtually unsackable and accountable only to their mates.
These bonuses should be withheld and the Chief Exec made to fall on her hairpin for gross incompetence and failure to perform. We also need to look long and hard at the appointment of people to head public agencies as to whether they have the ability to run such an organisation. Someone who ran the RSPB is hardly able to cope with a multi-agency that actually has to perform and do real things for hundreds of thousands of people.

[Will James]

Too little, too late.

[The Huntsman]

I am posting this on the open thread and the Ainsworth thread as it seems appropriate for both.

Tory Environment Minister Peter Ainsworth has picked up on the bonuses for floods scandal at the Environment agency. Now he has the ball in his hands, let us see if he and the party’s machine can keep it going for long enough for him to score a try.

Given the fact that the effects of these floods are going to persist for many weeks, not to say months in both the South West and the North, there is scope for prolonging the attack almost indefinitely on this one. In addition, the nature of this disaster strongly suggests that, with some decent research, a really rich seam of material can be opened up.

For example, the fact of these bonuses should be linked in the public’s mind to the fact that the two main officials of the Environment Agency are both Labour Placemen, neither of them with obvious qualifications for the prestigious and well-paid jobs they occupy. Interestingly Baroness Young’s Wikipedia entry has been edited over the weekend to remove a reference to her being at Edinburgh University at the same time as Macavity…How odd!

The whole issue of what has and has not been spent on flood defences seems to be a complete shambles, as usual. Milliband was responsible for some of the cuts, so he can be fingered for some of the blame instead of being Mr. Squeaky Clean. Benn is supposed to have a safe pair of hands: he is long overdue for some egg on the face. Let Ainsworth give him some.

This is just the sort of subject where we have been failing to nail Labour this year. It is so fertile because it affects so many people in such a direct and unpleasant way and is very telegenic: Ainsworth should keep his wellies in his car for the next two months so he can keep up the attack at a moment’s notice. If any LibDem or Labour Councils in the affected areas have been dilatory in their clear up work and assistance to house holders, stick them into the firing line as well. It is all hard graft, but only hard graft is going to win this election.

[David Belchamber]

Were other tory MPs out and about when there was flooding in their constituencies? Has much been made of the c£14M that was lopped off the flood prevention budget? And why was it reduced? We must make our presence felt more.

[malcolm]

I think Peter Ainsworth who has been pretty invisible so far would be much better spending his time looking at the personalities on the Enviroment Agencies board and the remit of the Enviromen Agency itself.
Has the work of the Enviroment Agency been effective? . Have their flooding forecasts been accurate? . Is the foremost qualification for getting onto the board of the Enviroment Agency been expertise or connections to the Labour party? Did the enviroment agency allow their budget to be cut with the minimum of fuss? Why did Milliband agree to these cuts? What is their view of building on flood plains in the future?
All these questions should have been asked by Peter Ainsworth last week. It is, as others have already said, far to little, far too late.
All these questions should have been asked by Ainsworth

[Angelo Basu]

On the basis of the money that was available to it, did the EA do less than it could reasonably have done? I'm not sure.

While it is tempting to attack the EA board for its bonuses when it includes leading Labour politicians, I don't think it is a particularly attractive approach and lets the Govt and the apparent Lib/Lab control over flood defences off the hook. It makes it far too easy to get jeers back saying "Where was your condemnation at the bonuses paid to fat cat directors of businesses who were denying their workers even inflationary rises, the directors of Jarvis, Railtrack etc etc etc?".

The comments on this thread have been more pertinent than our Shadow Minister's.

[Dick Wishart]

Its no good knocking the people who received the target bonus payments the idiots who SET these targets are the ones to go for. Mind you don't suppose they are any different to the Building Society chief who saw the assets plummet but still picked up a few million quid because he hit some other obscure target, perhaps its a sign of the times we live in.

[TomTom]

Its no good knocking the people who received the target bonus payments the idiots who SET these targets are the ones to go for.

a) It is a PUBLIC AGENCY using TAXPAYERS money

b) They set their OWN targets being an AGENCY

[TomTom]

b

[Don Collier]

Angel and Tom Tom.

I have met many EA officers who are frustrated by the directions from the Government through their board. They are loyal civil Servants and they do what they told not what they want to or feel it is the right thing to do.

[Flu-Bird]

Its time to end these stupid enviromental regulations taht do nothing its time to ether end or repeal the ESA and elminated or reformed the EPA