Prospect, the union which represents workers at the Environment Agency, is taking the opportunity of the floods to protest job cuts – “The government must call an immediate moratorium on 1,500 job cuts in the Environment Agency in the light of the flooding that has swept the UK this winter” – as if that would stop the rain. 1,500 job cuts sounds like a lot until you realise that it is only 10% of the bloated workforce.

Bloated? Well it is by international comparisons. Equivalent quangos in the rest of the world are much smaller, the Environment Agency for England alone has more staff than the Canadian, Danish, French, German, Swedish and Austrian equivalents, combined!

Only the US Environmental Protection Agency has more staff, (15,913 versus 11,200) hardly surprising given the US is some eighty times larger than the UK with six times the population. According to a whistle blower, blogging for “Inside the Environment Agency“, based on international comparisons it has 9,000 too many and a billion plus budget that should be slashed in half. Some serious Treasury axe wielding required here…