Whitehall’s environment department will minimise use of contractors and pursue tech reform in the coming years, with its broad stable of agencies and public bodies a particular area of focus

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been equipped with hundreds of millions of pounds to invest in the coming months in upgrading legacy systems and improving digital services – in the central ministry and across its stable of arm’s-length bodies.

This week’s Spending Review outlines that, in the three-year period beginning in March 2026, Defra will be a budget of “over £300m… [to put] into programmes to improve services, deliver better outcomes and reduce costs”.

This progress will manifest in three areas, beginning with efforts focused on “addressing historic legacy IT challenges in order to reduce the risk of system failures and cyberattacks, and move towards a modern, fit-for-purpose, resilient and secure core technology system”.

The funding will also support the department in its work on “transforming the Environment Agency’s digital systems to lower costs and improve customer services for businesses and developers”. Finally, the £300m spending pot will support Defra in “investing in AI-enabled improvements to reduce the costs of regulation, improve the management of disease risks and streamline the delivery of grants”.

Related content

• Defra to spend £43m this year on addressing ageing apps
• Defra to create UK-wide digital system to collect rubbish information
• Defra launches developer recruitment drive

Money will be committed from the £3.25m Government Transformation Fund to specifically support “transformation in Defra ALBs”, the full Spending Review document reveals. The department’s network of arm’s-length bodies includes 35 discrete entities, including the Environment Agency – which employs twice as many people as the core department itself. Other significant organisations under Defra’s watch include the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Rural Payments Agency, Natural England, and Kew Gardens.

To help assist with digital reform across this network of bodies, the transformation fund will provide Defra with a dedicated £17m tranche of funding in 2026/27, followed by another £9m in 2027/28.

The improvements in the department’s tech are expected to be a key contributor to Defra’s intent to achieve efficiency savings of 5% by March 2029 – including £144m of “technical efficiencies”.

“This includes… increasing in-house digital expertise to reduce spend on contractors,” the review says.

Defra’s overall annual funding for the current financial year and each of the next two years will stand at £7.5bn – a figure that will reduce slightly to £7.5bn in 2028/29. Almost two-thirds of this is accounted for by resource funding for day-to-day operations, with the remainder representing capital funding for upfront spending.