A statement from Peter Nottage; Regional Director, regarding structural changes to Natural England as a result of the spending review.

Circulated on Friday 5th November 2010.

As you know, Defra has received its funding settlement as part of the Spending Review 2010 announcements. After a long period of waiting, we’re delighted to now be able to go forward with greater certainty. We all understand that the cuts have been necessary and we have been preparing for this for some time.  Natural England’s funding allocation over the four years covered by the Spending Review has not yet been determined but, as you may be aware, we have plans in place for a cut in the region of 30%. We want to do this is in a positive way that will empower our people to work more closely with local communities and engage civil society, recognising that, whilst future levels of investment in the natural environment remain significant, they can be made to go further if we are successful in collaborating more fully with fellow Defra delivery bodies and other partners.

Our detailed plans for the future will be included in our revised Corporate Plan, which we’ll develop with Defra over the next few months.  We’ll send you a link to this for your views as soon as we have a draft ready for consultation.

You may be aware that, in order to deliver these changes, we are revisiting our organisational design, taking out a layer of management at the regional level, and planning to reduce the number of our people by up to a third, with the first 400 (15%) leaving early in 2011/12.

This is obviously a difficult time in view of the high regard in which we hold all our colleagues, who have helped to make Natural England what it is today.  We are of course maintaining our focus on frontline delivery through this period of change and we will also be making sure that we retain our high levels of professional expertise across the full range of our work.

Commensurate with the reductions we are making to our staff, we are also reducing the size of our Executive team. As a first step in this two Executive Directors (Tom Tew and Robin Tucker) have recently left Natural England.  Whilst it is always difficult to lose valued colleagues, we recognise that, in common with many organisations, this is the harsh reality we must come to terms with in delivering the reforms required of us. The new, smaller Executive Board will now lead the transition to our new organisational design on 1 April 2011. These changes will have implications for our operational engagement with your organisation and how we manage our relationship with you at a senior level. We will explore these implications with you over the coming months in order to ensure a smooth transition.

As a result of these changes Natural England will no longer have Regional Directors among its Executive team. The detailed management arrangements affecting this region are still in development and the new structures will be populated over the next few months and will take effect in April 2011. We will write to you to confirm your named senior contact in due course, but in the meantime please continue to contact me with any queries. As we move towards the new organisational arrangements may I thank you for your cooperation and support in my time as Regional Director, it has been a real privilidge and pleasure for me to work with you and other parthers and colleagues in such a rich and varied region. I am delighted to say that I will continue to have a role in the NE Executive Team as the Director for Organisation Development and, whilst I am really looking forward to the challenges and opportunities that new role will bring, I will always cherish my time as Regional Director. I would also like to reassure you that we are committed to ensuring that our new structure will be fully aligned to the needs of our customers and partners locally.

Best wishes

Peter Nottage
Regional Director