Memorandum submitted by the Regional Flood
Defence Committees (DFWMB 28)
REGIONAL FLOOD
DEFENCE COMMITTEES
1. This note by the Chairmen of the Regional
Flood Defence Committees (RFDCs) in England responds to the Committee's
request for written submissions to their inquiry on the draft
Flood and Water Management Bill. There are eleven statutory RFDCs
made up of an independent Chair and a number of appointees by
the Secretary of State for the Environment, and the Environment
Agency (EA), together with members of local authorities in the
region (who comprise the majority). RFDCs advise the EA on its
plans and priorities for flood risk management (FRM) investment
in the region, approve its business plan and account to the Agency
and to DEFRA for the stewardship of FRM resources. Committees
also raise a levy on local authorities for investment in local
schemes. Amounts of levy vary from region to region, but in total
amount to over £25 million in the current year.
2. Because of the timing of the Committee's inquiry
it has not been possible for RFDCs to discuss the issues raised
in their normal course of business. RFDCs will be responding directly
to the Government's consultation paper next month. Meanwhile this
response to the Committee is the work of RFDC Chairmen collectively,
working as a group of informed and knowledgeable individuals.
It may not therefore represent the views of each individual Committee
in every aspect.
Are the powers in the draft Bill sufficient to
enable the implementation of all the recommendations of the Pitt
review?
3. We strongly welcome the Draft Bill and support
the intention to update and consolidate existing legislation into
a single unifying Act and implement recommendations from previous
reviews, particularly the Pitt Review. We think the draft Bill
is generally successful in this regard, and is certainly ambitious
in its breadth. However we would like to see a stronger overall
vision on how the responsibilities of all the different players
will fit together. The table of respective roles and responsibilities
(Figure 1 in the consultative document) is helpful in setting
out a division of executive roles and responsibilities, but strong
linkages will also be needed to ensure that it is all joined up.
We are aware that the Government is seeking to achieve this through
encouraging the development of local authority led partnerships,
but consider that this part of the new institutional arrangements
needs to be made more explicit.
4. We think that the lead LA role should include
an expectation that partnerships will be established to support
the development of local strategies and to help deliver them.
The EA strategic overview role should include a responsibility
for ensuring that such partnerships are put in place and are fit
for purpose. This part of the strategic overview should be exercised
through RFCC's as democratically based committees of the EA. We
develop this thinking further in response to some of the questions
below.
Does the Bill strike the right balance between
protecting the environment and protecting homes and businesses
from flooding?
5. Broadly speaking, yes. It will be important
for environmental and sustainability concerns to be fully reflected
in the plans and strategies to be produced by local authorities—and
any guidance related to them.
Are the proposals in the draft Bill necessary,
workable, efficient and clear? Are there any important omissions?
6. While welcoming the overall approach we also
see a number of significant risks in it. First there are resource
risks, which we address in answer to the financial issues question
below.
7. Second it will clearly be difficult to ensure
a nationally consistent approach in the way local authorities
(LAs) are to carry out their new responsibilities, for example
in developing plans and strategies, potentially supervising IDBs
and prioritising funding. However, national consistency may not
be such an issue as long as the LAs meet the necessary standards
and there is a means of holding them to account. This ought to
be part of the future role for RFCCs as part of the EA's strategic
overview.
8. Third, with no reduction in the number
of operating authorities, and the creation of new responsibilities
for some agencies there is a real risk that the proposals could
make the management of flood risk even more complex, with the
potential for more confusion with the wider public as to who does
what. In order to ensure effective coordination locally there
will be a need for new partnerships to be developed which, while
necessary, could add further to the potential for confusion. The
current statutory powers for undertaking flood risk management
work will remain with numerous operating authorities, with few
members of the public being able to differentiate between watercourses
that are Main River, Ordinary, Awarded or IDB adopted drains.
We are very pleased that the Government is already actively promoting
such partnership approaches in advance of legislation, but consideration
should be given to making the partnership development role an
explicit part of LAs' new powers.
9. Fourth, while we welcome the recognition
that different partnership approaches will be needed in different
localities it seems inevitable that these will also be afforded
different degrees of priority by lead local authorities which
all experience suggests will be roughly proportional to their
own experience of flooding. Whilst 2007 is fresh in the memory
of many, it has less relevance to others and over time it is likely
to be the case that flood risk will slide down the agenda of local
political and funding priorities in the absence of further major
incidents. It is therefore essential that part of the EA's strategic
overview role should extend to ensuring that the effectiveness
of local partnerships is sustained over time. We believe that
because of their composition and expertise, because of their local
presence and because of their single focus on flood related matters,
RFCCs should carry out this aspect of the strategic overview as
Committees of the EA. (There is commendable work being undertaken
with the EA in Yorkshire, East Anglia and the Midlands at present,
which should yield useful conclusions.)
Is the proposed administrative framework appropriate
and sufficient for enforcement of measures contained in the Bill?
10. Our comments above set out some of our
reservations on this issue. Our biggest concerns with the proposed
administrative framework lie in the risk of greater complexity,
the absence of an explicit co-ordinating mechanism and the big
practical gap, identified by Pitt as a significant issue, between
well over 100 lead local authorities (often operating in small
areas whose boundaries bear no relation to the wider patterns
of flood risk) and a single national Agency. We believe that the
proposed Regional Flood and Coastal Committees (RFCCs) to be built
on the existing RFDCs, have the potential to strengthen the proposed
arrangements, but that the draft Bill does not sufficiently recognise
that potential.
11. RFDCs are unique in having firm local democratic
credentials, through a majority of local authority elected members
and an ability to deliver important elements of the strategic
overview through being Committees of the EA, while also bringing
independent FRM and environmental expertise to bear.
So whilst we welcome the acknowledgement in
paragraph 240 of the Consultation document that the RFDCs:
(i) provide real benefits;
(ii) ensure local democratic input into the decision
making process;
(iii) help set the overall strategic direction
for the regions;
(iv) provide an important challenge function
within the EA; and
(v) support effective delivery by the EA in the
regions
as evidence of the importance of the role hitherto
undertaken by them, we also consider that this basis can be built
on further in setting out the role for RFCCs in future.
12. It follows that we do not agree, as
stated in Paragraph 245 that RFCCs should "be on a similar
footing to the EA's other statutory advisory committees—the
REPACs and RFERACs". Not only will RFCCs retain executive
powers with regard to the local levy, but as argued elsewhere
in this submission, there is useful scope to use the future RFCCs
as vehicles for ensuring the strategic overview functions of the
EA properly influence, and are influenced by, local strategies.
This will give meaning to the "bridge role" between
local and national levels recognised as a crucial part of the
landscape by Pitt.
13. We are also concerned that positioning
the RFCCs as advisory would in practice diminish their influence
in the future and might have the effect of deterring senior Councillors
and others from becoming members.
14. We consider that RFCCs should have powers
to:
(i) receive local flood and coastal risk management
plans as part of the EA's strategic overview;
(ii) hold their constituent local authorities
to account for producing them; and
(iii) work across their regions to ensure consistent
quality and sharing of good practice.
15. As paragraph 240 in the consultation
document states, RFDCs currently ensure local democratic input
to the decision making process, although we recognise that their
overarching executive function, in practice, if not in law, was
lost when direct Defra funding was introduced as block grant to
the EA from 2004. Accordingly we see the primary purpose of the
proposal to replace Section 106 of the Water Resources Act in
the draft Bill as clarifying accountability for expenditure of
Flood Defence Grant in Aid (FDGiA). It should not however follow
that RFCCs' practical powers are restricted to raising a levy.
As noted above they have:
(i) a critical role to perform in ensuring the
effectiveness of the strategic overview, through not only the
provision of advice but also the peer review of local plans; and
(ii) an ability, through their elected member
majority, to ensure that constituent authorities are held to account
for the establishment and fitness for purpose of partnerships
and the production and quality of local plans.
16. Pulling all this together we think the
Bill should provide for a new role for the RFCCs consistent with
that envisaged by Pitt, but which does not cloud accountability.
Responsibility should clearly lie with the Agency for producing
and delivering a national investment programme for FRM.
The RFCC role should be to provide local and
regional input to the plan, to ensure stakeholder engagement in
it and to scrutinize its delivery.
17. On this basis the institutional framework
to be created by the Bill should enable RFCCs:
(i) to use regional Strategic Flood Risk Assessments
to produce a regional investment plan, in consultation with stakeholders
(including Local Authorities and RDAs) in their region, to inform
a national investment plan within the funding and policy framework
agreed by the EA Board. This would be consistent with the Pitt
Report, in providing a bridge between local plans to be produced
by Local Authorities and the EA's national strategy, and ensuring
that local plans work alongside each other within wider catchments;
and
(ii) as part of the Strategic Overview to have
a power to consider all aspects of all Flood and Coastal Risk
Management (FCRM) work in their regions (including plans such
as CFMPs and SMPs, SFRAs and SWMPs), and to report to the EA Board
on:
— the implementation of FCRM plans in their
region;
— the investment of FCRM resources in their
region; and
— spatial planning and development control
in flood risk areas.
This monitoring role to include keeping organisations
to task, being the eyes and ears on the ground and overseeing
joint investment programmes.
18. Such a regional approach to FCRM would
be similar to approaches being taken on planning, housing, transport
and economic development. It would:
— give an important say to local authorities
and committees in the development of investment plans;
— greatly facilitate the national/local
bridge role envisaged by Pitt; and
— give a much stronger place to FCRM issues
in regional planning.
It would, however, leave accountability for
FDGiA clearly and solely with the EA Board, whilst enabling the
RFCC both as a Committee of the EA and as a group of regional
stakeholders to go some way towards holding the EA to account
within the region, thus providing a "check and balance"
which would diminish any risk of the system becoming dominated
by one large national organization.
Is the balance right as to what is on the face
of the Bill and what is to into regulations?
19. Subject to the suggestions above, the
balance seems appropriate.
What are the likely financial resource implications
of the Bill?
20. We are not in a position to quantify all
the costs of the new arrangements, but clearly they are likely
to be substantial. This underlines our concerns, we set out in
earlier evidence to the Committee, that there has to be a very
significant long term commitment to investment in improving flood
risk management in our country.
21. There is a clear risk that the Bill may transfer
responsibilities from organisations with the FRM expertise, namely
the EA and IDBs, to Local Authorities, who in most cases lack
the expertise, the relevant staff resources and adequate additional
funding to build these up at all quickly.
22. Local Authorities do not budget for
flood incidents, the geography and timing of which is not predictable,
so there is no actual saving against existing budgets to be made
in not having to deal with floods so frequently in future. Despite
the commitment of some new resources we are concerned that in
reality there will not be enough additional money to fund their
new Local FRM responsibility. When they currently deal with floods
they have to fund this by not carrying out other budgeted activities
or drawing on reserves.
Has the Government analysed the effects of the
Bill and fully taken into account consultation?
23. The Government's efforts to consult
on such wide ranging and detailed issues are to be commended.
We look forward to further opportunities for discussion between
the Government and all interested parties in the light of the
current consultation.
Regional Flood Defence Committees
June 2009
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