Defra is the government department that has overall national responsibility for policy on flood and coastal erosion risk management, and provides funding for flood risk management authorities through grants to the Environment Agency and local authorities.
If I were the head of the Environment Agency who had had to deal with repeated cuts to my budgets over the preceding years, cuts to local authority budgets who too have responsibility, who had all the advice about the flood risks to the public, businesses, towns and the environment ignored by the government, who had watched while vast subsidies were paid to the grouse shooting estate owners and friends of those in government and to farmers to clear vast swathes of the countryside of its trees and hedgerows I think I would have stayed exactly where I was and let those ultimately responsible for the disastrous consequences take the flack!
Of course of George Osborne the Chancellor responsible for ongoing cuts in funding there has been neither sight nor sound. David Cameron who heads the party responsible for the ideological austerity cuts on public services that have been imposed on the British people of which the Environment Agency is just one, to pay through the nose for those in the financial sector and banks who jeopardized the economic security of the British people with impunity, didn't even have the balls to face the wrath of people affected by the floods. He confined his recent visit to the affected areas to only meeting with those from the armed services who would be constrained by protocol from expressing opinions.
Whether or not the head of the Environment Agency stayed on holiday is just a red herring to detract from those really responsible for ensuring the people are protected.