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Defra consults on closer ties with third sector

Finance | Tania Mason | 13 Mar 2008

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has launched a consultation to examine how his department can work better with voluntary sector organisations to tackle climate change and other problems.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wants to engage with the sector more in its work, protecting the environment, supporting rural communities and addressing climate change.

The consultation was launched just days before WWF hosted a speech by prime minister Gordon Brown during which he admitted that the UK may need to reduce its carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said it sounded as though Brown finally grasped the scale of the problem, but it remained to be seen whether his government’s policies would deliver the required changes.

Defra is drawing up a third sector strategy and the outcome of the 12-week consultation will contribute to this. The strategy will be published next April and will cover five areas of common interest: campaigning, strengthening communities; transforming public services, encouraging social enterprise, and building partnerships.

The consultation process will constitute meetings of groups of voluntary sector stakeholders that know about certain issues, who will be invited to suggest practical ways that the Department and the sector can work together. Workshops will then be run around each of the themes, to engage a wider audience.

In 2004/5, the latest year for which figures are available, Defra spent more than £50m of its overall budget through third sector organisations.

Benn (pictured) said Defra enjoyed a “good working relationship” with the sector but recognised that it needed to build its own capacity in order to meet the expectations of its third sector partners. “I look forward to suggestions for how we can go forward together to achieve this,” he said.

But this morning, Defra was being accused by animal rights group Animal Defenders International of leaking a report about treatment of circus animals to Zippos Circus.

Zippos pre-empted publication of the report by putting on its website a day earlier a statement outlining what it expected the report to say. ADI chief executive Jan Creamer said the “leak to one interested party” was inexcusable. Both Defra and Zippos denied the report was leaked. 

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