Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
27 JUNE 2007
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon. Welcome
to the Committee of Public Accounts where today our hearing fortuitously
is on the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report, Building
and maintaining river and coastal flood defences in England.
We welcome back to our Committee Baroness Young of Old Scone,
who is Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, and David King,
who is Head of Water Management at the Agency. Would you like
to introduce your other colleagues?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: David
Rooke is our Head of Flood Risk Management; we have brought him
along today because of the current flood emergency. Tim Kersley
is our Head of Asset Management.
Q2 Chairman: You can probably confirm
this, but half an hour ago, according to the BBC, the River Don
has now broken its banks in Sheffield and the Army has now been
called in. Is that right?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: David
may have more up-to-date information than I.
Mr Rooke: Yes Chairman, the River
Don is over-topping flood banks as we speak in the Doncaster area
and we called in the military this morning to help assure defences
which are at risk of failing.
The Committee suspended from 3.35pm to 4.05pm
for divisions in the House.
Q3 Chairman: If you recall, I had asked
a question about what was happening to the River Don which has
broken its banks.
Mr Rooke: As we speak our flood
defences in the Doncaster area are over-topping. We are undertaking
sand-bagging to minimise that, we are strengthening a defence
that is showing signs of weakness and we have called in the military
to assist us in doing that.
Q4 Chairman: So Lady Young, do you
think the residents of Sheffield are satisfied with your performance?
Given the fact that there were numerous forecasts of heavy rain
last week, why did you not take sufficient action in the intervening
period to minimise the risk of flooding?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: As
far as Sheffield is concerned, the event was an extreme weather
event of a sort that has not been seen for many years. Sheffield
itself has not previously been a high risk flood area and the
sorts of levels we were seeing, which were five to seven feet
higher than we had seen before, were going to overwhelm any defence
that was there. The combined flooding in Sheffield was partly
due to surface water overwhelming the drains, and that has been
a common phenomenon across the country, as well as rivers over-topping.
We are pleased to say that, as far as we are aware, in Sheffield
there were no failures of defences and all of our warnings went
out in good time. For all flood defences, we have simply got to
say that there will be occasions of these extreme events, and
this has been a very extreme event, when no amount of pre-planning
or pre-warning will do other than help people remove themselves
from the area because, although we can do much to defend people
against floods, we cannot prevent those very extreme floods.
Q5 Chairman: The fact remains though
that we are talking here about the River Don. Would you like to
look please at appendix 1 which you can find on page 28? We had
a hearing last on these issues in the year 2000. We made various
recommendations and one of these recommendations, which we can
find on page 20, paragraph 2.24, is: "The Agency commenced
the development of Catchment Flood Management Plans in 2001 and
aimed to have all 68 plans in England completed by December 2007".
Do you see that? That was a direct result of this hearing. Obviously
it would have made an enormous difference around the country,
if your plans had been ready. If we now go back and look at this
appendix 1 on page 28, in the North East, 19, Don/Rother, we can
see that the estimated date of approval by the regional director
for the catchment flood management plan area for this river is
now July 2008. This is in direct contravention of the deadline
that you had set yourself of December 2007. Can you please tell
me what is actually going on here?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Firstly,
may I say that we are on a trajectory now to complete these plans
by the end of 2008 and we think we may complete them earlier.
In fact, even if these plans had been complete, that would not
have prevented much of the flooding that is happening at the moment.
Q6 Chairman: Well you say that, but
the fact is that this was a specific recommendation made to this
Committee which you accepted and we see that there has been slippage
in other areas as well. As it happens, I have given you a direct
reference to the River Don. You have failed, have you not, in
the management of your Agency to fulfil a specific target which
you set yourself? It may be that this is an extreme weather condition
but I cannot believe that things would not have been much better,
if these catchment management plans had been up to speed. After
all, we are now talking about a Committee Report in 2002. We are
now 2007. It really beggars belief in a civilised society that
we cannot protect people or even have plans in place.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Firstly,
these plans are very complex and in 2001 we had only just begun
the process. The need to consult with a wide variety of stakeholders
and to take communities with us has proved much more time consuming
than we had anticipated.
Q7 Chairman: I am sure you need to
consult, but we are talking about plans and promises which were
made six years ago.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: As
we worked through the initial plans, we discovered that the timescales
were longer than we wanted. We have now reviewed that and have
looked at ways of reducing the timescales. The second issue was,
of course, that one of the casualties of our cuts mid-year last
year was the pace at which we were able to do catchment flood
management plans. Thirdly, even if we had completed those plans,
the next hurdle is drawing up strategies below those and schemes.
The biggest brake on adequate protection for those communities
who do not have schemes at the moment is not whether we have got
schemes to come forward, but whether we can fund them. We already
have a large number of schemes in the pipeline which are all fully
worked up and very cost effective but simply cannot be funded.
Q8 Chairman: Talking of funding Lady
Young, would you like to look at paragraph 1.8 which you can find
on page 12? "Expenditure by the Agency on flood risk management
has increased from £303 million in 2001-02 to £483 million
in 2006-07. The increased funding was announced by the Government
in the 2002 Spending Review to improve flood defences". This
is a very considerable improvement in your funding and because
of shortcomings in your management of this Agency, this extra
funding, which was given to you by the Treasury, way in excess
of many other agencies, apparently has not delivered the goods.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: May
I refer the Committee to table 6 on page 13 which describes the
profile of the funding. In fact, though it was announced in 2001-02
we really did not begin to see significant uplift in funding until
quite considerably later. There was some uplift in 2002-03 and
then it bumped along before we got the big uplift in 2005-06.
We have delivered a huge amount with that funding. We have improved
the standard protection for 100,000 houses between 2003-04 and
2005-06. We are going to exceed the target of 85,000 properties
in the period 2005-08. We have mapped all of the area of England
and Wales more effectively in order to be able to predict the
probability of flooding and we now are able to give very detailed
information to householders free on our website.
Q9 Chairman: The fact remains, as
this Report shows, and there may not be time for me to ask you
in detail all of these points but they are in the Report, that
there are shortcomings in your management systems, there are shortcomings
in your allocation of funds between areas, there are shortcomings
in terms of budgeting for cost and maintenance staff, there are
shortcomings in terms of the lifespan of assets and there are
shortcomings in terms of construction costs. All these shortcomings
are detailed in the Report. The fact remains and it is there,
you yourself have referred to figure 6 as I have referred to paragraph
1.8, that you have had considerable improvement in your funding
and because of these shortcomings in your own Agency, for which
you are responsible as Accounting Officer, you have not delivered
protection for the British people.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
have delivered a considerable amount of protection. We have exceeded
all of the targets set to us by Defra in terms of our mapping,
our warning and our construction of flood defences. We are well
on the way to improving the quality of our defences, though we
are learning more about the quality that is necessary to withstand
floods and to give us a fit-for-purpose service. Our management
systems are good, our asset database is now fit for purpose and
is able to deliver a wide range of information and our construction
and procurement was indeed praised by the National Audit Office
in a previous Report.
Q10 Chairman: Are you satisfied with
the condition of the dam on the Ulley Reservoir? Is this not a
graphic illustration of what has gone wrong and of the concerns
that we raised in 2001?
Mr Rooke: The situation is stable
at the Ulley dam at the moment. The emergency services and professional
engineers appointed by the owners of the dam, Rotherham Borough
Council, are on site and they are taking emergency measures to
try to draw down the reservoir water levels to make it even safer.
Of course, there is still a significant risk that the dam may
fail and there is still a risk that the rain that is forecast
for the weekend will exacerbate the situation.
Q11 Chairman: I understand that you
are not directly responsible for this reservoir, is that right?
Mr Rooke: No, we are not.
Q12 Chairman: But you are responsible
for regulating and keeping an eye on the local authority. If there
are any weaknesses, or if there had been any weaknesses in the
reservoir, should you not have done more to do your job and to
ensure this reservoir was up to scratch?
Mr Rooke: The reservoir is compliant
with the Reservoirs Act, the legislation that governs this area.
Q13 Chairman: It is apparently being
pumped out at the moment. Why did you not think of starting to
do this last week?
Mr Rooke: The event was so severe
that it appears to have over-topped the face of the dam and caused
damage to the downstream face.
Q14 Chairman: Lady Young, let us
go down to your management of this Agency. We made specific recommendations.
We would have expected a marked improvement in flood defences.
Let us look at figure 9, page 15. You can see the figure relates
to linear defences and structures. You are now responsible for
a greater length of defences, but if we look at the end of those
columns, that is the linear defences in poor or very poor condition,
we see, compared with 2000 and 2007, 500 miles in 2000, 1,900
miles in 2007. You are actually going backwards, are you not?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
have, of course, got in these two graphs a very different set
of assets. We have taken on a considerable number of assets, we
have learned a lot more about our own assets, so we now are in
a much better position to be able to take a risk-based approach
to asset condition.
Q15 Chairman: I am sorry, these figures
relate to 2002 and 2007. You are actually going backwards. It
is not just linear defences; you have made no progress either
in terms of the overall percentage in poor/very poor condition
in structures. What have you been doing?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: If,
however, you take the absolute length of the asset or the numbers
of assets the two columns cover, miles of assets and numbers of
structures, you can see that there is more blue on each occasion.
Q16 Chairman: I do not know what
that means.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: As
a proportion it is not improving.
Q17 Chairman: What does: "there
is more blue on each occasion" mean?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
have more length of asset and more numbers of structures in better
condition.
Q18 Chairman: I did not ask that
question. What the public are concerned with is why, under your
management of this Agency, comparing 2007 and 2000, you are actually
going backwards? In terms of linear defences, there are more miles
now in poor or very poor condition. This is a severe indictment
of your management of this Agency.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: The
number of assets we have under our charge is now more than double
the number of assets we had then. We have taken on others from
other operators.
Q19 Chairman: Well it rather begs
the question why you have, if you are not capable of running them.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
have also learned considerably about our assets and we no longer
count asset condition in the way that it is done in table 9. We
now look at whole asset systems so that we can see how the system
operates together which may mean that some elements of the system
are in poorer condition but they may be fit for purpose because
they are not a crucial part of that system.
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