Natural England spells out how new government cuts will effect the current position for agri-environment schemes.

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• Defra and its delivery bodies like Natural England will contribute £162m to the Government’s overall £6bn savings this year – that’s 5.5% of Defra’s budget for 2010/11.  Like most areas that are not ring fenced, RDPE will make a contribution to that reduction in the budget deficit.
• One part of the cuts is a reduction in the RDPE budget in 2010/11 – this is a first step in the drive to reduce the public sector deficit and Natural England and Defra are working with central government to balance this need with the need to protect the environment.
• Existing commitments for agreements and capital works will not be affected.
• However, this will have an significant impact on the number of new amendments to existing agreements (CSS, HLS and ESA) that spend in 10-11.  It is now very unlikely that any new amendments will be agreed.  But, existing agreements can have amendments added, if they spend in 11-12 or later.
• We are still able to write agreements and make commitments for future years with capital schemes included. 
• We will continue to discuss with agreement holders the possibility of agreeing capital works later in the year, when we have a clearer picture of all of the budget priorities. In summary the current position is:-

The budget reduction is only for amendments to existing agreements which spend in 10-11.

New HLS agreements are not affected.  Please continue with FEP’s.

New HLS agreements that spend on capital items in 10-11 are not affected.

ELS and UELS are not affected.

The historic and traditional buildings budget is not affected.