By contributing to brood care, defence and territory maintenance they avoid being evicted by larger, more dominant group members (Taborsky 1984, 1985; Balshine-Earn et al. 1998; Bergmüller et al. 2005; Bergmüller & Taborsky 2005; Stiver et al. 2005; Heg & Taborsky 2010).
Deprivation would be retained in separate formulas for adult social care, children and youth services, public health, highways maintenance, flood defence, and fire and rescue services.
One possible explanation is that explicit care of eggs trades-off with carcass maintenance and defence.
The new funding, plus another £160m over the next five years for maintenance of defences, was delivered despite Cameron having long insisted the government was spending large amounts on flood defences.
He shudders at the idea of dredging or flood defence maintenance being neglected and says that the UK should look closely at where it has gone wrong this year.
The document identifies "risks" of bad publicity, including "because the flood defence maintenance budget had reduced, there is a risk that news outlets will claim that the government is spending less on flood defences than previously".
Air traffic control Benefits and welfare advice Border and immigration Coastguards Courts service Customs Defence maintenance and support Information technology Police support Royal palaces Security State pensions Taxation Museums and galleries including the Tate and the British Library.
There has already been a rush of big contracts signed in recent months, including several for the £450m privatisation of the probation service, the £140m privatisation of the defence maintenance division of the Ministry of Defence and the £1bn privatisation of the east coast mainline rail service, which is going ahead on 1 March despite Labour's opposition.
MPs warn that the flood defence maintenance budget is shrinking as the number of defences increases.
The department announced last month it had already spent its £77,000 annual budget for coastal defence maintenance.
