<font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Mr Miliband failed to get a?? ??1 billion Agency to tackle flooding urgently enough.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman" size="3">The Environment Agency in 2005/6 received ??450 million for flood protection, and?? enjoyed a total income of?? ??1038 million. Blazoned across its website Annual Report?? are warm words including Protecting?. All that seems very hollow to many people counting the cost of their ruined homes in the current floods.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman" size="3">The Agency states the blindingly obvious as part of its attempt to divert responsibility from itself:</font>

The vast majority of floods come from two sources; one is surface water overwhelming the drains, the second is very heavy and intense rainfall causing river levels to rise so high they overwhelm and overtop defences. Less than 1% of all floods are as a result of the failure of flood defences.?
<span />People expect the flood defence and the water management system to cope with heavy rainfall. Heavy rainfall may be unusual in June but it is not unusual at other times of the year in the UK. The Environment Agency is charged with regulating the whole water system, and with pointing out the dangers of building on floodplain.
<span />The Agency’s report is typical of a top heavy very expensive monopoly regulator under this government. In July last year its report tells us?? that only 58.6% of EA maintained flood defences were in good or better condition. They admitted that 4.7% of EA defences were in poor or worse condition. There is still building on flood plain, often driven through against Council wishes by government Inspectors.
<span />The Agency budget is mainly about paying for a very large number of people in offices to monitor, advise, warn, lecture, ??and to raise charges, fees and fines on the rest of us.?? Out of the 13,774 employees only 1608 are manual - the type of people who might go out and clear a blocked drain, improve flood defences or pump water away from residential areas.
The total pay and pensions bill was a???? massive ??477 million last year. They spent ??30 million on travel, subsistence and entertainment in 2005/6. If they had spent some of this money on improving our ability to handle water on the ground we would not be suffering so much. They blame the lack of grant they should try managing a ??1 billion budget better in line with public priorities for them.
<span />Mr Miliband gets promoted for failing to get value from all this spending, and for leaving the country ill prepared for some heavy rainfall. He should have spent more time at DEFRA trying to sort out the mess of the Environment Agency, and less time contemplating his future career in government.
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