WEST Oxfordshire District Council will not be cutting the amount of money it spends on flood defences after all, it has emerged.

Earlier this month the Oxford Mail revealed that the council’s budget for preventing flooding could be cut by a third, dropping from £177,200 this year, to £120,800.

The cut was highlighted in the council’s draft revenue budget for next year, and included one job loss.

But council chiefs have now clarified the budget and have confirmed the job will stay.

It said the apparent cuts were the result of accounting procedures involving funding for the post of a trainee drainage engineer.

The staff member is responsible for administering the maintenance of land drainage, ditches and pipes, pointing out flood hazards and making sure landowners do their bit.

The job was created in Septemberfrom the Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency.

The council had allocated cash from its own budget for the current year, to fund the post, before discovering central government would pay for it.

Because of this external funding, the sum of £40,000 for the post now appears under the obscure heading of “Capital Sals to allocate to Programme” in the the capital budget, instead of the revenue budget as before. The job itself remains the same.

If funding from Defra and the Environment Agency falls through over the next two years, the council will pay for the post.

The budget also showed another £20,000 moving from “flood defence and land drainage” to “agency work (section 38)” – the council’s way of describing the task of making sure new roads built by private developers meet construction standards.

But councillor Simon Hoare, cabinet member for finance, said this did not represent a change in focus for an officer, merely an accounting change.

He said: “It is a reallocation of budget.

“The person is still going to be doing the same work.”

Mr Hoare said Oxfordshire County Council would take over the ‘Section 38’ role next year, so it is likely the officer would actually spend more time on flood defence. He added: “What we are seeing is an enhanced service on the ground, working on flood projects, able to be delivered at a lower cost to local council tax payers as a result of receiving grant funding from central government.

“This is a win-win situation.”