House of Commons - Public Accounts

Select Committee on Public Accounts Minutes of Evidence

Supplementary memorandum submitted by the Environment Agency

Question 22 (Mr Edward Leigh): 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.

We are currently reviewing what our `fit for purpose' standards ought to be. The fact that an asset is not at our `preferred' condition does not mean that it is inadequate—less than 1% of floods result from asset failure, a fact borne out in the recent floods.

We have produced a Report from our asset register, the National Flood Coastal Defence Database (NFCDD) of all asset systems in Northern Area Anglian Region. This comprises the county of Lincolnshire, parts of Northamptonshire and Northern Cambridgeshire. We record below the headline details of systems that pass our preferred target condition. In addition we provide a complete schedule of each system that does not achieve our target.

Anglian Region Northern Area

System Details (as at 31/03/2007)

1. Summary

high risk systems total 101

passed 49

did not pass 52

medium risk systems total 44

passed 35

did not pass 9

low risk systems total 50

passed 30

did not pass 20

2. Schedules of Systems that do not meet our preferred condition target.

We provide below a complete list of all systems in Northern Area Anglian region that are not at our preferred condition. The lists are separated into High, Medium and Low risk.

Notes:

The following information is provided

(a) The unique system reference. This is provided under the heading "FRM system"

(b) A brief description of the location and extent of the system, headed `Group Description'.

(d) Confirmation of the consequence of failure of the system, Headed `consequence rating'. The measurement of risk takes into accountthe likelihood of a flood occurring combined with its possible consequences.

HIGH RISK SYSTEMS
FRM System	Group Description	Catchment	Consequence Rating
FR/01/S003	EAST DRAIN, Humber to top end of wrawby catchwater and Little carr drain, also including bonby, worlaby catchwaters and land drain	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S004	L ANCHOLME, Harlem hill lock to bishopbridge, including Kingerby beck, east drain upper and east drain trib	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S005	M ANCHOLME, bridge st, brigg to Harlem hill lock, including all the major tributaries along this length	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S022	STALLINGBOROUGH, stallingborough north beck,Humber to stallingborough road and Oldfleet drain, humber to healing road	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S023	R FRESHNEY, Alexandra road bridge to Laceby bypass bridge including full length of new cut drain	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S026	BUCK BECK, Humber to toll bar road bridge	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S028	LOUTH CANAL, tetney lock to riverhead road, including mother drain, poulton drain, black dike and parts of mother drain, new dike and oldfleet diversion	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S032	GREAT EAU, great eau, tidal outfall to belleau bridge and long eau, great eau to A157 and muckton beck	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S034	WOLDGRIFT DRAIN, Tidal outfall to upstream limit at saleby	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S036	R STEEPING, wainfleet clough to Mill bridge including wainfleet relief channel and burgh relief channel	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S042	Maud Foster Drain carries higland water past Stickney & Sibsey before passing through Boston and discharging into the Witham Haven	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S043	RIVER BAIN carries water past the villages of Kirkby-on-Bain, Tattershall and Coningsby	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S045	HORNCASTLE is a market town through which the Rivers Bain and Waring pass.	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S055	South Forty Foot Drain is a large rural catchment draining over 30 IDB pumped catchmnets and upand villages such as Helpringham, Swaton Pointon and Billingborough.	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S062	SLEA drains Sleaford, Ruskington and Leasingham	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S067	Lincoln City system protects the city and numerous elements of major infrastructure	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S075	GRANTHAM large market town protected by raised defences private structures	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S078	Witham Haven tidal channel draining large market town of Boston and extensive fen floodplain	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S079	Winteringham to Ferriby Cliff, entire length protects winteringham and arable land	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S080	Ferriby Cliff to EH Skitter, entire length entire length protects numerous small towns Barton-on-Humber, Barrow-on-Humber internationally designated sites and nationally important industrial areas	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S081	EH Skitter to Pyewipe, entire length protects numerous small towns Barton-on-Humber, Barrow-on-Humber internationally designated sites and nationally important industrial areas	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S085	Mablethorpe NE to Sandilands,entire length protects Mablethorpe, Trusthorpe and major tourist industry	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S087	Chapel Point to Lagoon Walk, entire length protects Ingoldmells and major tourist industry inc Butlins Holiday camp and several thousand caravans	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S089	Gib Point to Horseshoe Tidal defences protecting large areas of high grade arable and villages including Friskney, Wainfleet St Mary	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S090	Horseshoe to Hobhole Tidal defences protecting large areas of high grade arable and viallages of Wrangle, butterwick and Freiston Shore and HMIP North Sea Camp	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S091	Frampton Tidal defences protecting large areas of high grade arable and RSPB reserve. Would flood land fill tip and industrial area of Boston	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S099	River Welland from the A427 to the disused rail bridge in Market Harborough, and the entire lengths of the River Jordan, Dingley Dyke, West Brook and Brookfield Drain.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S104	North Brook from Greetham Pumping Station to the Main River Limit.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S119	Fluvial Welland, from its outfall into the Tidal Welland to the A15 road bridge upstream of Market Deeping.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S122	Includes Car Dyke Eye, Folley River, Brook Drian (excluding the Woodcroft Arm), Werrington Brook, Paston Brook, and Marholme Brook and also includes the Paston and Marholme COW's, in Peterborough.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S124	Maxey Cut, entire length.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S126	Tidal Welland, entire length	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S127	Tidal Nene, entire length and Main River section of the North Level Main Drain.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S134	River Nene, Dog in a Doublet to Orton Dyke Outfall, and the entire lengths of Fletton Springs, Stanground Lode, Orton Dyke, Thorpe Meadows and Thorpe Drain, in Peterborough.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S136	River Nene, Wansford to Warmington including Yarwell Mill Tail, Elton Mill channel and Broadreach Back channel.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S143	River Nene, Upper Wellingborough Lock to Lower Wellingborough Lock, and Dennington Brook, Wellingborough.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S150	River Nene, Billing Bridge to South Bridge, including Bypass and Mill Channels, Northampton.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S160	Gretton Brook, Gretton Rd Bridge to Separation Chamber	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S172	Harpers Brook, Sudborough Rd Bridge to Main River Limit	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S180	Skew Bridge Dyke, entire length, Rushden	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S184	River Ise, Warkton Rd Bridge to A43	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S187	Swanspool Brook, entire length, Wellingborough.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S188	Harrowden Brook, entire length, Wellingborough.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S189	Slade Brook, Outfall to Glendon Rail Culvert, and the entire length of the East Brook.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S195	Ecton Brook, entire length, Northampton.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S202	River Nene, Kislingbury Branch, including Weedon Branch, Heyford Brook and Bugbrooke Brook downstream of the Canal, Camp Lane Dyke, Harpole Mill Bypass, Red Lion Dyke, A45 Tributary, Stowe Brook and the Wooton Brook and tributaries downstream of Quinton Rd Bridge, East of Northampton.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S214	River Glen, Surfleet Sluice to Kates Bridge.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S217	Bourne Eau, entire length including COW, Car Dyke North entire length, and the Car Dyke South downstream of Fen Rd Bridge, Bourne, Lincolnshire.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S224	Latimer Brook, entire length, Burton Latimer.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S227	Witham Top Pond	Lincolnshire	HIGH
FR/01/S997	Kibworth Brook and Meadow Brook, entire lengths, Market Harborough.	Welland and Nene	HIGH
FR/01/S998	Raunds Hog Dyke and Parallel Channel, entire length including COW	Welland and Nene	HIGH

MEDIUM RISK SYSTEMS
FRM System	Group Name	Catchment	Consequence Rating
FR/01/S037	COW CR DRAIN, Croft pump station to Bratoft road, entire length	Lincolnshire	MED
FR/01/S044	HORNCASTLE CANAL protects villages of Haltham and Dalderby and contrbutes to protection of Horncastle	Lincolnshire	MED
FR/01/S048	DUCKPOOL C 3m raised earth defences protecting high grade arable and isolated residential properties	Lincolnshire	MED
FR/01/S060	KYME EAU 3m raised earth defences protecting high grade arable and isolated village Chapel Hill	Lincolnshire	MED
FR/01/S064	BILLINGHAY N CUT 2m raised earth defences protecting high grade arable and numerous villages Billinghay, Digby	Lincolnshire	MED
FR/01/S065	CARR DYKE & DELPHS 2m raised earth defences protecting high grade arable and numerous villagesPotterhanworth, Branston Timberland and Walcott	Lincolnshire	MED
FR/01/S072	CLAYPOLE defended rural channel protecting Claypole, foston and Westborough	Lincolnshire	MED
FR/01/S116	Foxton Brook, entire length.	Welland and Nene	MED
FR/01/S183	River Ise, Outfall to Warkton Rd Bridge	Welland and Nene	MED

LOW RISK SYSTEMS
FRM System	Group Name	Catchment	Consequence Rating
FR/01/S008	Grasby Beck, Howsham Road bridge to Hill Farm, entire length	Lincolnshire	LOW
FR/01/S009	CREEK DRAIN, Caistor Canal to Upstream limit, entire length	Lincolnshire	LOW
FR/01/S010	South Kelsey Catchwater, Caistor canal to Kelsey road, entire length	Lincolnshire	LOW
FR/01/S011	THORNTON catchwater drain, entire length	Lincolnshire	LOW
FR/01/S051	STAINFIELD BECK drains arable land isolated prperties	Lincolnshire	LOW
FR/01/S057	CLIFF BECK drains arable land	Lincolnshire	LOW
FR/01/S096	River Welland from Rockingham Bridge to the A427 including the Great Bowden Flood Relief Channel, and the entire lengths of Ashley Dyke, Slawston Brook, Langton Brook and Stonton Brook are also included.	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S115	Medbourne Brook, upstream of FSR embankment, east and west arms.	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S120	River Welland Millstreams and the River Welland from Tallington to Uffington Rd Bridge.	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S123	Brook Drain Woodcroft Arm	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S158	Willow Brook, Bulwick Rd Bridge to Weldon Central Stream confluence, and Gretton Brook from its outfall to Gretton Rd Bridge.	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S164	Perio Herne, entire length	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S170	Harpers Brook, Brancey Brook to Sudborough Rd Bridge.	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S179	Chelveston Brook, entire length	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S182	Knuston Brook, entire length	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S194	Barton Brook, entire length	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S211	Heyford Brook, Canal to Main River Limit	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S213	River Nene, Everdon and Newnham arms	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S218	Car Dyke South, Fen Rd Bridge to Main River Limit.	Welland and Nene	LOW
FR/01/S996	River Nene, Church Brampton Branch, entire length	Welland and Nene	LOW

Question 33 (Mr David 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.

The Planning White Paper was published in May 2007. It follows the previous planning reforms in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. It is effectively in two parts, with a number of minor reforms to the town and country planning system and a new system for dealing with major infrastructure projects. The latter could result in a Planning Reform Bill in the Autumn, subject to Parliamentary time being available.

None of the town and country reforms in the White Paper specifically cover either the issue of flood risk or sustainable drainage systems. However, one of the proposals in the White Paper is that Communities and Local Government: "produce a more strategic, clearer and more focused national policy framework with (Planning Policy Statement) PPS1—Delivering Sustainable Development at its heart"".

PPS1 provides policy support for sustainable drainage systems, along with PPS25 Development and Flood Risk which includes a key planning objective to: "reduce flood risk to and from new developments through location, layout and design, incorporating sustainable drainage systems (SUDS)"". Both PPSs provide strong policy support for the use of SUDS so it is important that in producing its `more strategic, clearer and more focused national policy framework' the government does not lose this important policy advice. Equally PPS25 provides increasingly strong policy on development and flood risk and this must also be protected in any policy reforms.

With strong policy promotion of SUDS in planning and plenty of technical guidance on how to do SUDS the issue preventing the widespread use of SUDS appears to be that of adoption. There are growing signs that water companies are willing to take on the adoption of SUDS but funding their long term maintenance is a key problem. A funding solution needs to be found quickly to enable these proven systems to be used. Renewed effort is required to resolve this issue, including involvement of key stakeholders such as Ofwat, water companies and the major housebuilders.

We are building substantial numbers of new homes that will still be around in 50—100 years. The decisions we make now about their design and layout will have an impact on flooding into the future. It is important that they are designed in a way that minimises the chances of major urban flooding in the future.

Urban flooding will only be effectively tackled by key stakeholders working together to common standards. Longer term (25 year) strategic planning of drainage infrastructure that takes account of climate change and sets out responses of different organisations involved will be a key mechanism. In January this year, Defra launched a £1.7million programme to pilot this approach in 15 areas of the country. The Environment Agency is involved in all of the pilots, and is the lead organisation in Surrey, Newcastle, Lincoln and Torbay.

But we believe that Local Authorities are best placed to co-ordinate production of these plans, whereas the Environment Agency is best placed to contribute to their production, and ensure they are fit for purpose for the long term.

In terms of the major infrastructure proposals in the Planning White Paper, we need to ensure that major developments do not give rise to flood risk elsewhere and that they avoid high flood risk locations wherever possible. It is proposed that planning consultees, such as the Environment Agency, have a key role to play in the developments of major infrastructure proposals, and we expect developers to pay particular attention to our advice on flood risk. The Planning White Paper proposes `streamlining' the planning process. Whilst we accept this is needed, we would want to avoid a watering down of the commitments secured in the Planning Policy Statement 25 and ensure that EA views are taken into account in decisions on infrastructure proposals and that the option for call in is retained where EA sustains an objection.

New National Policy Statements will be created to guide major infrastructure proposal decisions—we believe these should be subject to Strategic Environmental Assessment to help ensure these objectives are achieved. The overall purpose of the new major infrastructure process should be the achievement of sustainable development, which mirrors the purpose given to the Town and Country Planning system in the 2004 Act.

Question 86 (Mr Richard Bacon): If there are various sources of funding, a clear note that sets out in a chart where they all come from and what they all add up to so we know what we are talking about. Could you also, within that, specify capital expenditure, maintenance expenditure and new expenditure and do it for each of the last five years and what your planning assumptions are going forward.

Our income comes from Flood Defence Grant in Aid (Defra), Local Authority Levies, Private Contributions, Charges and Precepts (such as drainage charges to Internal Drainage Boards), and other income (from sale of assets & rental charges).

(a) Breakdown of funding sources by type: 2006/07


Source	£m	%

FDGiA	419.2	93.9
Contrib	0.4	0.1
Charges	10.9	2.4
Other cap	8.6	1.9
Other rev	15.9	3.6
Total	454.6	100

(b) Table of expenditure 2002-03 to 2006-07 (all figures £m)

Year	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07
Capital	170.1	172.4	176	255.3	195
Revenue (includes Maintenance)	183.1	183.3	220.6	291.2	259.6
Total	353.2	355.7	396.6	546.5	454.6
Note: In order to enable a comparison with earlier years and alignment with the future years' Government funding figures the above table does not include Local Levy funded expenditure (Table 6 in the NAO Report is total expenditure including Local Levy)

Our planning assumption has been modest growth for capital and reduction in revenue, however recent announcements on funding have changed the degree to which capital expenditure is likely to grow and we are presently making adjustments to our forward plans. It is not yet clear how much of the new funding will come to Environment Agency and when.

Question 86 (Mr Richard Bacon): Administrative costs

Administrative costs in 2006-07

National Costs	£k	Narrative
National Centres and Services	6,197	Services, including internal audit, National Environment Assessment Services, science and fleet operations,provided for frontline staff centrally
Policy Units & Business Process Units	7,237	Develop and implement national polices, design and monitor consistent processes
Corporate Information Services	7,694	Information technology development and support for all FRM staff
National Corporate Directorate costs	7,637	Cost of the National Directorates including the cost of the Executive and Board
Accommodation and Depots (National)	10,736	All accommodation rent/rates including the costs of depots for the workforce
Regional Support Service Costs	14,813	Delivery management teams and their local support, including Regional Management Teams, finance, HR and facilities management
Regional Strategy Teams inc Corporate Affairs etc	6,037	Local customer and stakeholder engagement—strategic environmental and FRM planning
Area Support Services
Area Customer Services	3,498	Provide a customer focus for planning and general liaison with the public and stakeholders
Total	63,849

Question 139 (Mr Edward Leigh): I want to know, reference paragraph 3.8 on page 24, why you spent so much developing plans for new flood defences rather than actually building them.

Activities classified as Development.

Development costs cover all the study work, investigations and design activity that may lead to construction work. The portfolio of study work involved also contributes to actions not involving the Environment Agency in construction activity. These include:-

— Future approaches to development control

— Action by other operators (such as improved surface drainage)

— Changes to maintenance regimes

— Catchment Flood Management Plans & Shoreline Management Plans

— Detailed feasibility of `short listed' priority schemes

— Planning approvals, including enquiries

— Detailed design of schemes.

— Site investigations

— Scheme drawings and contract documents

In 2005-06 we spent £64.5m on "development costs"" and £161m on construction work.

Our investment in these studies yields benefit for the public purse through :-

— Work by others

— Non construction activities

— Selection of the preferred scheme option (eg water storage area or higher defences)

— Identification of highest priority works

Actions to enhance efficiency

To pursue future improvements we have:

— Focussed on improved construction delivery giving greater confidence to delivery of programme and reducing the degree of contingency schemes required as programme `float'. External benchmarks show that our performance on budget management places us in the top 10% of construction clients in the UK This has progressively improved and now allows us to reduce the proportion of schemes in development at any one time.

— Developed new tools to map and quantify costs, damages and risks. These enable more effective and efficient early calculation of the costs and benefits of a flood risk area, allowing early curtailment of work on low priority locations.

In combination these improvements will allow us to reduce total expenditure on study work and other development costs by 3% a year for the next 2 years. In addition we are currently developing further supporting tools on risk mapping, and longer term investment plans that will enable further efficiency savings.

Question 139 (Mr Edward Leigh): I want to know why such a small proportion of your construction budget is available for new projects, with reference to figure 15 on page 23.

The proportion of committed work varies from year to year depending upon the portfolio of projects that makes up the programme. Currently we have a number of multi year schemes including for example works at Nottingham (£46m over 5 years), works on the coast at Dymchurch (£54m over 10 years) and Broadland PFI (£130m over 20 years).

This year we have £104.7m committed on 163 projects, so only £20.2m is available to start 33 projects. This will change from year to year as projects end, and new, long term projects begin.

Typical Project Timeframes

In order to ensure efficient construction we are often constrained to delivering works in only part of the year (normally summer months) thus our larger projects often take a number of years to complete. Our commitment to such projects means that only limited funds are available each year to start new projects. In practice we ensure that contractual provisions exist for us to efficiently delay or curtail work and provide greater opportunity to introduce new work, however this is often undesirable and rarely offers better value for money.

Question 139 (Mr Edward Leigh): I want to know why it is that six years after the last NAO Report, your data systems are still of such poor quality, with reference to summary paragraph 5, final bullet on page 7.

Asset data and the National Flood and Coastal Defence Database (NFCDD)

We have worked hard to tackle the weaknesses identified in the previous NAO Report. In particular, we have

— Improved greatly the quality and completeness of the data

— Developed a standard set of Reports available nationally and regionally, including those on asset condition, asset maintenance, work planning and programming priorities, system condition target Reports and inspections due, programmed and carried out.

NFCDD is not designed as a data management system but as secure data storage. This can slightly increase the complexity of its use, but has other benefits in terms of data security.

Since completing the improvements we made in 2006, we commissioned a further review of NFCDD to tackle the issues identified in the current NAO Report, and have begun to implement many of its recommendations. For example we have improving the capacity to download data and provide nationally consistent Reports, and identified the work required to move to a full asset management system.

As we expand our business, learn from experience and evolve new techniques and approaches, so our data needs change. We are constantly working to ensure our data and systems are fit for purpose.

Additional briefing—Catchment Flood Management Plans (CFMP)

The EA is in the process of developing 68 CFMPs in England (to be completed by end December 2008) and for nine in Wales (to be completed by end March 2009). Whilst these plans are essential for long term planning of flood risk management the absence of a plan does not mean that no action is planned to be taken to reduce risk. The EA mapping systems and our National Flood Risk Analysis already drive much of our investment and are used extensively to manage our capital and maintenance programmes targeting investment where risks are highest.

The absence of a completed plan for Sheffield, Hull, Leeds or Doncaster does not mean that no solutions to flooding problems have been contemplated or acted upon. Proposals for Leeds are well advanced and much work has previously taken place around Hull. However, it has to be recognised that even with defences, much of the recent flooding would not have been avoided since it effectively resulted either from drainage systems being overwhelmed or from overtopping of flood assets due to extreme rainfall levels.

Catchment Flood Management Plans take a strategic long-term look at flood risk in a river catchment. Each plan considers the main physical processes and factors that generate flooding and evaluates flood risks. This process covers from the moment rainwater falls onto the land, via the passage of floodwater through river valleys and how it affects floodplain settlements, to the sea.

The plans set out how flood risk is likely to change over the next 50-100 years when considering the impact of climate change and how land is used and managed.

CFMPs will shape the future of flood risk management in England and Wales. They will set out objectives for the catchment and develop local flood risk management solutions. The plans develop an action plan that sets out how risk can be managed in that catchment in a sustainable way using a broad portfolio of flood risk management tools. The action plan will drive what we and others can do to reduce flood risks to people and the natural and built environments.

Why do we need CFMPs?

Catchment Flood Management Plans will support the development of better, sustainable and safe communities and we hope they will encourage people and organisations to work together to avoid, manage or live with flood risk. We know we can only produce effective Catchment Flood Management Plans with help from other organisations, such as planning authorities and other flood operating authorities. Agreeing policies to manage flood risk in a given catchment and making those policies work, requires co-ordinated action by these local organisations and groups, and we hope that they will use CFMPs to inform their own plans and activities.

What do CFMPs look at?

Catchment Flood Management Plans take a strategic approach to flood risk management by assessing the risks across the whole catchment. As part of this approach, they will focus on:

— Flood risk management planning

CFMPs will set out our objectives for the catchment, what policies will be adopted to enable us to best deliver those objectives, and outline the range of flood risk management responses that will work for that catchment. They will enable the prioritisation of actions based on risk, so we can target our investment in the highest risk locations first.

— Climate change

CFMPs include an assessment of what flood risk could look like in 50-100 years time in the catchment. By considering the long-term we can start to plan for future climates and make decisions whether they way we are managing risk now will still work in the future.

— Spatial planning

Spatial planning has a very important role to avoid new flood risks being created through inappropriate development. Flood plains are essential for rivers to live and breathe—making space for floodwaters in rural areas and through towns is essential to reduce flood risk and benefit wildlife.

Catchment Flood Management Plans will help spatial planners undertake their Strategic and Local Flood Risk Assessments and assess how safe and sustainable their development proposals are.

In England, we want Catchment Flood Management Plans to support Spatial Strategies, Local Development Frameworks and associated Flood Risk Assessments; in Wales, we want them to support the Wales Spatial Plan, Local Development Plans and associated Flood Consequence Assessments.

— Urban drainage

Poor surface water drainage in urban areas can cause local flash flooding. The increase in high intensity rainfall which climate change is expected to bring will make this worse. Catchment Flood Management Plans will indicate where this could be a problem now and where problems may occur in the future, and therefore identify where integrated urban drainage plans should be considered. Although as we have seen in the last few days traditional flood defence will not alleviate all urban flooding in face of significant rainfall.

Additional briefing—Progress since 2001

We have made significant progress since the 2001 report in areas such as gaining greater oversight of flood risks, creating new guidance on climate change, improving management of major construction projects and protecting more people (all confirmed in the NAO Report).

Strategic Planning

— We have progressed the development of Catchment Flood Management Plans (CFMPs) in partnership with other key organisations.

— We delivered the coastal strategic overview.

— We met Defra's High Level Target to develop costed action plans for all 64 priority Water Level Management Plan (WLMP) sites that we have responsibility for by the April 2007 deadline. A £14 million programme to implement those costed action plans is currently underway.

Data

— We have improved National Flood Risk Assessments (NaFRA).

— We have provided better flood risk data to the insurance industry so that they can continue to provide insurance cover to those at risk of flooding.

— We have delivered our asset register in the form of the National Flood and Coastal Defence database. Our database now includes a more comprehensive list of flood defences. We have, as the NAO report recognises, " ... established a more rigorous system for classifying, recording and monitoring the condition of flood defence assets"".

Flood Mapping

— We have mapped the probability of flooding for almost all of the land in England and Wales. Over 99% of properties are now covered and the information is available free to householders on our website or through our Floodline service.

Flood Risk and Development

— We have supported the development and implementation of Planning Policy Statement 25 (PPS 25) at a local level.

— We have updated guidance on the impacts of climate change on flood risk for inclusion in Planning Policy Statement 25 (PPS 25) and Flood and Coastal Defence Project Appraisal Guidance.

Flood Defences

— There are 24,000 miles of flood defences and 46,000 flood defences structures protecting properties in England, a substantial increase since 2001 when we had 11, 000 miles of defences and 23,000 structures. This is due to the inclusion of coastal defences, the inclusion of defences transferred from local authorities and IDBs, as well as reflecting our more accurate and comprehensive records.

— We have inspected and classified our 3,300 systems across England and Wales as High, Medium or Low risk

— We have improved our asset inspection process. It is now recognised in the NAO report as "effective and practical"".

— The replacement costs of all our assets at today's prices is £20bn.

— Over the 5 year period 2003-04—2007-08 we will have created nearly 960 hectares of Biodiversity Action Plan habitat.

Protecting Communities

— We have improved the standard of protection for 100, 000 houses between 2003-04 and 2005-06 against the target set by Defra of 80,000. We are also on track to exceed the target of improving protection to a further 85,000 properties between 2005-06 and 2007-08; we will have reduced flood risk to over 164,000 houses by the end of 2007-08.

Capital Programme

— Since the publication of the last report we have dramatically improved our delivery of the capital programme. This is recognised in the NAO report, and other `scrutinies' such as The NAO Report on Improving Public Services Through Better Construction (HC364 I) and the Zero Based Review (June 2006). Points to note are:

— Better project management through a national capital project management service;

— The development of a state of the art procurement process;

— Full delivery of a major project programme that has doubled, from £104M in 2000-01 to £211M in 2005-06;

— We have achieved value management savings (costs avoided and cash released) of £22.2M since 2003-04;

— Our average project development time has reduced from by half;

— Almost three quarters of the aggregates we now use have been recycled;

Flood Awareness, Forecasting and Warning

— We have developed and implemented a new, more effective flood forecasting service that allows us to provide greater accuracy in forecasting floods and issuing warnings;

— We launched a direct flood warning system in 2005. Almost 300,000 of properties at highest risk are now registered on it. This means more people at higher risk are receiving warnings when it really counts. During the June 2007 floods, over just one week, (25th June to 2nd July), Floodline Warnings Direct sent out 91,986 messages.

— The Environment Agency's Flood Awareness Campaign is a programme of communications to raise awareness of flood risk, encourage people to prepare in advance and targeted campaigns to vulnerable groups and specific communities

— It is supported by our Floodline call centre in (opened in 1999) to provide the public with recorded flood warning information and access to trained staff 24 hours a day. The service has received more than one million calls in the last five years, and calls have doubled since the launch of Floodline Warnings Direct in 2005. In June 2007 the call centre was dealing with 500 calls an hour at the peak—the daily average is 256 calls.

— Floodline has responded to the challenges of efficiency, answering 95% of calls within 15 seconds (on a par with some of the top performing police authorities) and quality, reporting 84% overall satisfaction measured in our challenging "mystery shopping"" quality assurance programme.

— More people than ever are going to our website for information about flooding—it is a critical service for flood warning information and advice. During the June 2007 floods we used a special version of our website to provide greater access to the public as demand increased. The website served 11,500,000 pages and had 850,000 unique visitors in 5 days (25th-29th June)—around 10 times our normally weekly traffic. During peak times we were serving over 250,000 pages to 30,000 users an hour.

— We have improved stakeholder and community engagement. We are developing toolkits to help communities adapt to flood and coastal erosion management policies and climate change, guidance for land use to mitigate flood risk, and improved evaluation of multiple benefits.

— We have carried out market research since 1997 to measure the general awareness of flood risk, our role in managing flooding, behaviours of those at risk preparing for flooding in advance and post floods surveys to find out if people took the right action in response to flooding. The public is more aware of our role in flooding (71% in 2006)—a 23% increase since 1997.

— Awareness amongst those who live in flood risk areas has fluctuated since we began the surveys in 1997. Awareness rose following the Autumn 2000 floods, then dipped and rose again following the launch of our Flood Map on the internet in 2004. The last recorded survey (2006) saw a downturn in awareness but our market research agency advised that high level of awareness are unlikely to be sustained without major flooding/mass media coverage of flooding on a national scale.

Funding

— We have successfully implemented the 2002 Spending Review and recommendations from the 2003 Flood and Coastal Defence Funding Review.

— We have restructured our emergency response teams released efficiency of £4.7m per annum without compromising standard of service provided.

— We are increasingly moving towards focusing our resources on high-risk systems. This has improved particularly since 2004 when the Environment Agency gained increased responsibility for funding decisions from the former Regional Flood Defence Committees. Moving from past conventions to the current year where we now invest approximately 3.5 times as much in maintenance and operations of High risk as we do in Medium and Low risk systems.

Additional Briefing—Lessons learned following the recent floods

As is our normal practice, we have commenced a review of Lessons Learned following the recent floods.

Meantime, it may be useful for you to have our preliminary view on some of the big issues emerging so far.

1. The weather events were severe and, in some cases, the sort of event which would be considered less probable than 1 in 150 years.

2. Our forecasting and warning worked well.

3. Inter-agency collaboration through Gold and Silver commands generally worked well, as far as our issues are concerned.

4. A major cause of floods and, in some cases, for example Hull, the prime cause was the overwhelming of surface water drainage systems by large volumes of water. We are committed to collaborating with Defra on the urban drainage pilot studies which are underway. This work needs to proceed with pace to ensure there is clear responsibility given to identified bodies, probably local authorities, working with water companies, to draw up 25 year strategies for drainage capable of withstanding an increasing number of extreme events. Climate change proofing urban drainage systems will require substantial investment and considerable lead-time to re-engineer existing drainage systems. Stronger measures need to be available to ensure new development is climate change/flood-proofed.

5. Our defences in the vast majority of cases worked to their design standard. The severity of the events meant that many floods occurred because the defences were overtopped by the extreme volume of water. The government's advised standard for riverine flood defences is to a 1 in 100 year event. There needs to be a review of what level of risk is acceptable and therefore what standard of protection is needed in view of the anticipated increased severity and frequency of such events with climate change.

6. Much of our infrastructure—roads, railways, schools, hospitals, electricity generation and distribution, police and fire stations—is in the flood plain and needs climate change/flood-proofing.

7. Though increasingly effective measures to prevent inappropriate developments in the flood plain have been provided to us, the legacy of considerable flood plain development over the last three decades remains. We need to consider how to offer better defences where appropriate and to retro-fit resilience measures to buildings to reduce the damage when floods occur.

8. We welcome the announcement of additional funds. Indications of amounts and timings are needed as soon as possible to allow us to target these at the highest priorities in a systematic way that delivers the most effective flood risk reduction.

9. There were two incidents involving reservoirs and a review of the legislation and regulatory framework would be timely.

10. Some commentators are already suggesting disaggregation of flood risk management to more local control. We should recall that government consulted on governance and funding after the extensive Autumn 2000 floods and concluded that a national approach was needed to enable effective focus on priorities and more efficient use of resources and skills.

Also, the integrated management of rivers, including pollution control, water resources, the land/water interface and biodiversity as well as flooding was an important principle when the Environment Agency was created and is even more valid now.