Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
ENVIRONMENT AGENCY
27 JUNE 2007
Q20 Chairman: What does the NAO say
to that point?
Mr Gibby: This is where we refer
to the proportion of high risk flood defence systems and condition.
We included this graphic to show a comparison with the previous
Report.
Q21 Chairman: Exactly, trying to
compare like with like. I thought as much. My last question relates
to the northern area which covers the whole of Lincolnshire and
Cambridgeshire, obviously an area of very high risk. If we look
at paragraph 2.9, we can see "The Agency estimates, based
on information from its area managers, that 46 % of high risk
systems were at target at the end of 2006-07". That still
means that there is a very large number of high risk systems which
are not in an adequate condition and it is actually higher in
my area than the figures given in that Report. Why is this? Why
is there still a large number of high risk flood systems that
are not in an adequate condition in my area and the areas of colleagues?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
do have some variation between areas as a result of a number of
issues. One is that the historic pattern of spending was decided
by regional flood defence committees and raised from local authorities.
In some parts of the country, there was a much greater emphasis
on new capital build than there was on maintenance and that is
an issue we are now trying to resolve since we achieved a single
block grant for funding three years ago, which allows us to move
money more flexibly between capital and maintenance and between
parts of the country.
Q22 Chairman: Are you prepared to
give a list of the systems in the northern area and Lincolnshire
and Cambridgeshire which are not in an adequate condition?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
would certainly be happy to provide you with an account of where
we believe the areas of risk are. [1]One
of the other things we are achieving, as a result of our improved
asset management process, is an understanding of exactly what
the nature of risk is. We have a large science programme trying
to investigate that and also the experience we have, now that
we have a better asset management process, is that where high
risk systems are not in adequate condition, we may actually be
over-specifying the condition and they could well be fit for purpose
at a lower condition. In some parts of the country that is the
case, though not in the two areas that you quote. We would certainly
be very happy to talk you through all of the assets. Unfortunately,
if we provide you with a list of the assets in bald terms as it
were, it really gives no feel for whether, in fact, they represent
a risk for the public. In our view, if you look at both the pattern
of floods that we have experienced over the last few years and
indeed this flood, a very, very small proportion, less than 1%
of all floods are caused by asset failure. Even though these figures
seem to imply that the quality of assets is not adequate, in practice
asset failure is not what causes floods and therefore we believe
that we have more to find out about the relationship between asset—
Q23 Chairman: The figure I was looking
for in the northern area is risk category not on target, 52 systems,
that is 51%. My last question then to Lady Young. In view of the
fact that you have manifestly failed to carry out the promises
given to this Committee, do you think the time has come to consider
your own position?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Chairman,
I am immensely proud of what we have achieved for flood risk management
over the last seven years. If we have one major problem, it is
simply that there is much more we could do if we had adequate
funding. We juggle day in day out and make very hard choices between
maintenance and new schemes for communities that have no defences.
My heart goes out to the people we have seen on the television
over the last two, three, four days. We believe we can do more.
We have become much more efficient, we are praised for our capital
programme processes and our procurement and I would not consider
considering my position, because I am proud of what we have done.
Q24 Mr Curry: How long is it on average
between agreement on a scheme, a scheme has been designed, the
plans are in place, everything is awaiting the bulldozers as it
were, and work actually starting on those schemes?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: It
will vary dramatically and it has lengthened considerably in the
last two years as a result of our ability to direct funds to different
parts of the country and to make a more flexible allocation between
maintenance and capital. I do not know whether David wants to
comment on average, how long between approval and going ahead
on the ground, but the problem at the moment is that we have a
number of schemes that have been worked up and insufficient funding
for them to go ahead and that is something that we want to avoid
for the future. It has partly been caused by the squeeze; it has
partly been caused by the fact that as we get our needs-based
programme further developed, we understand more clearly how many
communities could benefit from cost effective schemes. The one
thing we must not do is work up too many schemes that then cannot
be funded because we raise the hopes of communities that they
are going to get some solution, as indeed has happened in your
own community.
Q25 Mr Curry: Thank you for giving
me the lead-in on that. In Ripon we had a serious flood in 2000
and were badly flooded again a week ago, though the epicentre
was a sufficient number of miles east to spare us nobbut just,
as we say in Yorkshire, this time. Then a flood defence scheme
was agreed and all the plans are in place, we have the points
as well so we are over the magic 30 out of 44, or whatever the
figure is, but each time for three years in a row that has been
bumped down the list of priorities and all the houses which were
flooded in 2000 were of course flooded again just a week ago.
You can understand the frustration of communities when they feel
the problem has been solved, they are told that the problem is
about to be solved and then it does not happen. Money I know,
but what can we do to make sure that communities are not left
with this sort of sense of frustration and increasing anger?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Our
plan very much for the future is to try to tailor the scale and
pace at which we work schemes up to the amount of funding that
is likely to be available in the future. At the moment we have
too many schemes coming to a point where communities have hopes
raised and not enough money to be able to fund them. There are
things that we can do to help improve our efficiency and get more
bangs for our buck in terms of our procurement process. There
is always more we can do for that but that will not bridge the
gap between what we think is needed to do a decent job for both
maintenance and capital. About half a billion pounds a year at
the moment. We believe and many external commentators have said
that the more appropriate figure is somewhere around three quarters
of a billion and then a review beyond that as to the impacts of
climate change. There is a big, big gap and I am very sorry about
what has happened with the Ripon scheme. My understanding was
that it had a priority score of 16. At the moment, we are not
funding anything below 25, so it would be quite a long way back
in the queue, alas.
Q26 Mr Curry: On the little sheet
which the National Audit Office has given us I think that scheme
does actually count in the top league as a matter of fact.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: May
we come back to you on that priority?[2]
Q27 Mr Curry: You may; absolutely. I
should be delighted, if you would come back to me because everybody
else is coming back to me, so you might as well join in. If you
were to take the extreme weather event, what we have just seen
in South Yorkshire, and put that into your predictive model, what
would it tell you about how much else is at risk?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: I
shall ask the technical experts in a moment, but at the moment
the Government's decision by Defra, who set our standards, is
that we aim to protect populations against a one-in-a-100-year
event. The events that we have been seeing over the last few days
have been in excess of one-in-140-year to one-in-150-year events.
If we were to protect to a level of one in 150, we would probably
be at risk at the moment of over-investing in flood risk management.
Q28 Mr Curry: But if we believe everything
we have been told about climate change and we get different weather,
we may not get different weather patterns. As I understand it
the one thing which is missing is the pattern, which creates much
more of a problem, but, if we believe all we are being told about
it, then 1 in 100 years may no longer be a realistic yardstick.
What would be a realistic yard stick and what can you do about
your model to try to build into it scenarios which reflect what
has now become common debate about climate change?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
already do take account of potential climate change issues because
many of our defences particularly are being built for 50 years
forward. David or Tim may want to talk about what we are doing
on the climate change predictions.
Mr Kersley: Just to reinforce
that we have a science programme looking at the extent to which
climate change will increase the flow, which is the amount of
water in the rivers. The best evidence on that at the moment is
that we should carry out sensitivity tests on all of our works
to factor in a 20% increase in flow to take account of the predicted
change in rainfall pattern that is foreseeable. I do not know
whether David wants to come in to talk about our ability to have
that foresight. Our new capital schemes factor in the extent to
which the 20% would make a difference and, where it is appropriate,
we actually invest and ensure that our assets accommodate the
changes that would be necessary to contend with that flow.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: In
terms of the longer term, not just on the riverine systems, but
particularly for the coastal systems because the big risk in the
coasts is that a big storm surge coming down the east coast or
along the south coast could potentially be very, very damaging
both economically and in terms of loss of life, we do need to
begin to think about whether we are seeing a permanent shift in
weather patterns as a result of climate change.
Q29 Mr Curry: To what extent is government
policy joined-up in terms of the range of options to mitigate
extreme weather conditions, for example, the soft defence as opposed
to the hard defences, allowing areas to flood, dealing with issues
in agriculture where vehicles have compacted ground or areas on
uplands where peat has been removed for various purposes and no
longer then serves its purpose as a sponge to absorb the water?
Is there scope for the agri-environmental schemes which are now
very much all the rage and for which farmers are paying an increasing
amount in modulation? Have they been directed towards flood containment
in any way up to now?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
do, through our catchment food management plans and strategies
and indeed through the work we are doing on the water framework
directive, look at those issues of broader management of land
around catchments as part of a flood risk management approach.
At the moment the agri-environmental schemes are so much in demand
for a whole variety of outcomes, biodiversity, access, recreation,
environmental quality, water quality, that they are heavily pressurised.
We are certainly in discussion with Natural England about how
the things that we need delivered through the agri-environmental
funding, which include flood risk management and containment of
water up in catchments, can be taken account of in the agri-environmental
funding.
Q30 Mr Curry: I remember when I chaired
the Environment Committee we did a report into the water framework
directive and at that stage we said clearly there are implications
for agriculture of run-offs into the waters and the other agri-environmental
schemes could well be designed in order to give farmers the incentive
for the sort of behaviour which would be helpful. That has not
happened yet, has it? You are thinking about it and there are
other issues, but I am not aware the agri-environmental schemes
have yet been designed to take account of that.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
have had some use of agri-environmental schemes, not particularly
in terms of upstream catchments, but in terms of flood storage
areas and in terms of softer defences on the coast. I do not know
whether David wants to talk about upstream.
Dr King: What is worth mentioning
is that the Government's strategic framework, which was published
about two years ago, called Making Space for Water very
much enshrines the principle that you have just laid out which
is about looking for more sustainable solutions and making better
use of land management, setback, et cetera. The actual
framework is there and there has been a number of pilots but those
pilots have always been on quite a small scale. It is when you
move from a small scale to a catchment that it is much more difficult.
Mr Rooke: We have a research project
with the Government on the River Skell in your own constituency
which is looking at these very issues.
Q31 Mr Curry: That is the one which
flooded.
Mr Rooke: Yes.
Q32 Mr Curry: Let us move from farming
to concrete, shall we? Clearly, the more areas are built up—and
we are already being told that I ought to store the water which
comes off my roof and use it up to flush the loos, et cetera—the
greater must be the amount of water which runs off from a major
supermarket's car park and other installations, all of which is
going into drains as opposed to being perhaps absorbed by the
ground. On top of that, we have the arguments about houses which
are being built on the flood plain and we all know about the huge
numbers which are now being spoken of for places like the Thames
Gateway, often on areas which might have been brownfield, but
they were not developed sites in the past. What can be done to
deal with those issues, either in planning terms or the powers
you can exercise in the planning process? What is the situation
as far as the volume of house-building is concerned in relation
to the situation, both in terms of water need and in terms of
flooding?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
have been working very hard with the Department for Communities
and Local Government over the proposition for additional housing
and, particularly in the Gateway, with the Gateway authorities,
but also in the growth zones and with the Prime Minister's new
eco-towns to make sure that they are both located and designed
in ways that are as efficient as possible in terms of water and
do not increase flood risk and on occasions may even reduce flood
risk. We are more successful now in preventing inappropriate development
on the flood plain than we have ever been. A very small number
of developments go ahead against our advice these days, but if
you look at the television pictures over the last week, it is
quite clear to see that many of the places that are flooding are
industrial and commercial developments and housing developments
that have taken place in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, where there
is a considerable legacy now of inappropriate development in the
flood plain. In terms of what we call sustainable urban drainage
systems, trying to make sure, if there is concrete, that it is
permeable, that we have water holding areas to prevent it from
running straight off into the drains and causing flash flooding,
that is certainly something that we are pressing in all of the
areas where we are working with planners and developers. The difficulty
with some of the sustainable urban drainage systems is that they
do need maintenance for the future and they need to be adopted
by somebody once they have been created. We can persuade developers
to put them in, but then we need to be able to get local authorities
to say that they will maintain them, or indeed water companies
as part of the sewerage systems. That is something that we have
not yet got a policy way forward. I know we have a number of both
research projects and pilots on this at the moment, but we do
need to make progress on this issue of adoption.
Q33 Mr Curry: We had a planning White
Paper recently and we will have planning legislation presumably
quite soon. Are there things which ought to be in that planning
document which would address this issue?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: It
would certainly be a good idea to try to hijack the document as
it goes through and see whether we could get some clarity on this.
Mr Curry: It would be very useful to
have a note on that. [3]
Q34 Dr Pugh: A slightly fatuous question
to begin with. How does the Environment Agency define a flood?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Water
out of its normal channel, whether or not it causes damage.
Q35 Dr Pugh: It could in fact be
something on the soles of your shoes or it could be up to the
bedroom height, it could be either of those things and it would
still be a flood on your definition.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Yes.
Q36 Dr Pugh: In terms of your risk
management and your modelling, there is obviously quite a difference
between rainfalls: abundant rainfalls on farming lands get absorbed,
it is flat, it goes everywhere but it does not actually accumulate
in any one spot; in an urban environment where the ground may
be hard, the drainage may be poor and there are all sorts of recesses
into which it can go. Is your modelling sensitive enough in terms
of identifying risk to take that into account? Can you take in
those factors in terms of both identifying risk and in terms of
committing expenditure?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: We
can certainly talk to you about how we do our modelling for our
mapping which shows where we anticipate flooding will occur.
Q37 Dr Pugh: The point I am making
is that a lot of your mapping is topographical really. That is
not informative enough, is it? That does not enable you to predict
some of the events happening in Doncaster and Sheffield and Rotherham
with any degree of precision.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Do
you want to talk about how we put together a strategy and a capital
scheme within it? Looking at a particular area we would take the
strategy which looks at a broadish area and within that there
would then be individual schemes and those schemes would very
carefully model impacts of a variety of things, taking account
of the exact topography and the nature of the individual location,
to make sure that when we look at a range of options we are assessing
what particular events would do to those particular locations.
Q38 Dr Pugh: Within that data, how
conversant are you with the capacity of drainage systems in an
urban environment? Do you have any information in municipal authorities
that would enable you to know whether they will sustain some of
the events we have seen recently or not?
Mr Rooke: We identified, through
the Government's Making Space for Water strategy, that
urban drainage is a real and a growing issue. In fact the Government's
own Foresight Report published in 2004 identified urban drainage
as being a big issue, particularly as climate change starts to
impact. We have undertaken with Defra a number of pilot studies
which are underway across the country to look at this very issue
in terms of risks to people living in urban areas. We are going
to take the findings from those research pilot projects, analyse
them and then come forward with policy proposals to improve policy
to deal with this growing issue.
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Our
focus primarily historically has been on flooding from the sea
and from rivers and in fact in many cases at the moment areas
are flooding which are quite remote from rivers and seas which
are simply failures of the drainage system to cope. As a result
of these pilots we want to try to push forward 25-year drainage
plans. At the moment, we have water companies with 25-year water
supply plans but no long-term drainage plans. We believe that
there needs to be long-term drainage plans which will allow both
the water companies and local authorities and developers to anticipate,
to plan for the total needs for drainage for an area rather than
it all being piecemeal. At the moment, if you turn up with a development
proposition for a few houses, you will simply glue yourself onto
the end of the drains and there is very little way of taking a
strategic look at the moment. These 25-year plans would help very
much with that.
Q39 Dr Pugh: Would it be fair to
say there has been some refocusing of energy? It says in the Report
in front of us that there has not been a major sea flood since
1953, notwithstanding the current threats from global warming
and the like, and all the events we have heard of recently tend
to be in line, in urban environments and so on, to be riparian
and so on. Has there been any redirection of energy and could
you give some indication of how you are currently spending your
money? How much are you spending on the coast and how much are
you spending on protecting people from river flooding?
Baroness Young of Old Scone: Though
it is true to say we have not had a major flood since the one
in 1953, we have had floods on the coast in a number of places
since then and indeed we had a very high storm surge just within
the last six months. I personally could not assess the spend on
riverain and coastal because we do tend to take a view that we
are aiming to get the maximum benefit for our investment rather
than have a notional split.
1 Ev 18-22 Back
2
Note by witness: We have investigated the likelihood and
consequences of flooding at Ripon. This work has been undertaken
rigorously and in accordance with our nationally consistent appraisal
guidance. From this we have established the economic, environmental
and social benefits that would be delivered from implementing
a flood relief scheme. Back
3
Ev 22-23 Back
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