Select Committee on Agriculture Sixth Report

Annex 2

REGIONAL FLOOD DEFENCE COMMITTEES

GENERAL

  1.  Under the Environment Act 1995, there are Regional Flood Defence Committees (RFDCs) in each of the areas for which there was such a committee before the National Rivers Authority was subsumed into the Environment Agency (EA) on 1 April 1996. The EA is required to arrange for all its flood defence functions to be carried out by RFDCs except certain financial ones, such as the issuing of levies payable by constituent councils (local authorities with land in the area of the RFDC). The RFDC may arrange for all or any of these functions to be carried out by Local Flood Defence Committees (LFDCs) under a scheme approved by the Minister. Statutory LFDCs exist in the Anglian, Southern, Wessex and Welsh RFDC areas. Some RFDCS have a system of non-statutory local advisory committees.

FUNCTIONS

  2.  Flood defence is legally defined as the drainage of land (with drainage being defined as including defence against water, including sea water; irrigation, other than spray irrigation; warping; and the carrying on, for any purpose, of any other practice which involves the management of the level of water in a watercourse) and the provision of flood warning systems. In practice RFDCs are mainly concerned with the regulation and improvement of watercourses to alleviate the flooding of land or property; the maintenance or improvement of sea and tidal defences; and the provision of flood warning systems.

  3.  In order to carry out these functions the EA through the RFDCs has various statutory powers including the following:

(a)  to maintain or improve any watercourse which are designated as main rivers;

(b)  to maintain or improve any sea or tidal defences;

(c)  to install and operate flood warning equipment;

(d)  to control actions by riparian owners and occupiers which might interfere with the free flow of watercourses;

(e)  to supervise internal drainage boards.

  4.  It follows from the above that RFDCs are required to take an interest in all flood defence matters in their area and in particular to take decisions about the annual programmes of improvement and maintenance work to be carried out by the Agency. They must also decide on such matters as the extension of main rivers, the making and operation of land drainage byelaws and various issues affecting any internal drainage boards in their area. They are required annually to approve estimates of expenditure and to determine the amounts to be levied by the Agency on constituent councils.

MEMBERSHIP

  5.  Section 15(1) of the Environment Act 1995 provides that each RFDC must consist of the following, none of whom shall be a member of the Environment Agency:

(a)  a chairman and a number of other members appointed by the Minister;

(b)  two members appointed by the EA; and

(c)  a number of members (sufficient to form a bare majority on the RFDC) appointed by or on behalf of constituent councils.

  6.  In appointing a person to be the Chairman or a member of an RFDC the Minister or constituent council is required to "have regard to the desirability of appointing a person who has experience of, and has shown capacity in, some matter relevant to the functions of the committee". The Minister does not make any appointments to LFDCs although the members he appoints to an RFDC may be—and often are—offered appointment to an LFDC by the RFDC.

  7.  Although the Act does not require the Minister to appoint members on a geographical basis, in practice he tries to ensure that membership is spread over the whole of an RFDC's area. This means that in addition to their general responsibilities members are expected to have some knowledge of and take special interest in the flood defence problems of that part of the area in which they live.

MEETINGS

  8.  The frequency and timing of RFDC meetings varies from committee to committee. Generally speaking they are held quarterly during working hours at the EA's principal office in the region. The meetings are serviced by officers of the Agency.

Flood and Coastal Defence with Emergencies Division

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

December 1996

  Note: The term "Chairman" is used in the generic sense and includes Chairwoman.

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Prepared 5 August 1998