Future Flood and Water Management Legislation

Memorandum submitted by the Local Government Association

(FFW 2 8 )

Introduction

1. The LGA welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to this EFRA Committee Inquiry. The LGA and our member authorities have worked closely with DEFRA , the Environment Agency and CLG in developing the Flood and Water Management Act (FWMA) and are providing on-going input to guidance and capacity building. Given this close involvement in legislation, and the pivotal role of local authorities in flood and water management, the LGA is very keen to give oral evidence to this inquiry.

Progress by authorities in implementing flood and water legislation

2. L ocal authorities are making good progress in preparing for the new legislation , reflecting commitment to their new role, despite current economic challenges . Local strategic partnership s are being set up in all areas, alongside r egional groupings of flood managers (e.g South West Strategic Flood Managers Group) and regional learning alliances (e.g Yorkshire and Humber Learning Alliance) .

Unresolved issues from FWMA

3. The LGA favour s a unified FWMA , as originally envisaged by Sir Michael Pitt and we look forward to future legislative proposals that will deliver this. However, this submission will concentrate on issues connected to the FWMA .

Funding

4. The LGA and its member authorities were very supportive of the Pitt recommendations and the aims of the Flood and Water Management Bill. We were however critical of the Impact Assessment for the draft Bill and were pleased to see the report of a previous EFRA Committee Inquiry into the draft Bill, which concluded that the funding assessment was not robust. Disappointedly, DEFRA did not address this or other recommendations made by the EFRA Committee.

5. In this new Inquiry, w e hope the Committee will look at:

- how the Impact Assessment was conducted and whether the proposals on funding provide sufficient support for lead local flood authorities

- whether a revised assessment should be conducted, based on up to date information from all local authorities

- whether presumed efficiency savings and savings from better flood risk management should have been factored into the assessment.

Private Sewers Transfer

6. DEFRA’s Impact Assessment stated that the costs of the new lead role and maintenance of adopted SuDS (until 2018) could be funded through savings to local authorities from the transfer of private sewers to water companies. The LGA and its members do not believe the Impact Assessment stand s up to scrutiny and think it should be revisited using recent information from all local authorities.

- DEFRA’s Impact Assessment is based on a 2002 Atkins survey of local authorities , conducted for a separate purpose to which only 12% of authoritie s were able to provide mainly estimated figures.

- Both Atkins and DEFRA stated that the figures ‘can only be used as a guide’, However, the Impact Assessment ignored this and used the base data to conclude that authorities are spending over £50m pa on private sewers.

- Local authorities do not recognise the se figures and remain unconvinced by D EFRA ’s methodology. Most local authorities recover all their costs on private sewers. Leeds City Council 2008/9 Environmental Health spend on private sewers was £28k, whilst DEFRA estimate Leeds spend was £760k pa in total . Such huge discrepancies must be investigated.

- Since 2002 there have been significant amounts of housing (an average of 37%) that have gone out of local authority control, so even if some authorities were spending large sums on private sewers in 2002, they are no longer spending these sums.

- Only private sewers drained to lateral drains are included in the transfer. Private sewers drained to watercourses or to septic tanks are not included. T he cost of doing this wor k is disproportionally greater as they tend to be in more rural areas, so the savings will be significantly less than assumed .

- Under s.43 of the Act, lead authorities must now investigate all flooding incidents, so they will still be called out to private sewer flooding incidents. Because most private sewers are unmapped, the source of flooding and the responsibility for the sewer will not be known until it is investigated, so it is likely that there will be continuing costs .

Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDs)

7. Although the parts of the Act concerning SUDs are not expected to be implemented until 2012, local authorities need certainty over the phasing of implementation, the approval process , and a robust funding mechanism for the maintenance of SUDs.

8. The LGA agrees that local government should be responsible for the development of SUDs , and that we establish a close link between drainage and the planning process to the wider local flood risk management strategy, the scrutiny process and local amenity. We agree that adoption and maintenance of SUDs should be agreed locally and delegated where relevant. Water companies could have a role in the approval process, but we must maintain the link between sustainable drainage and spatial planning if we are to implement the Pitt recommendations effectively.

9. To support the desired expansion of SUDs, it is essential that we have a sustainable funding mechanism for long term maintenance and replacement. The LGA has proposed that the surface water drainage charge for all properties drained sustainably is used to fund long term maintenance. Such a system has the following advantages:

· It is efficient and flexible

· It is based on 'polluter pays' and standard utility bill payment culture

· It fully funds the LLFAs for maintenance

· It uses money that is already in the system

10. In contrast, the preferred Government model – that local authorities are paid to deliver this function from grant or taxation or private sewers transfer ‘savings’:

· Is not sustainable (‘savings’ from private sewers will run out after 8 years)

· Is unfair - tax payers draining surface water to sewers would subsidise customers which drain surface water to SuDS

· Is not a secure and expanding funding stream and therefore does not provide incentives to authorities (or WASCs) to expand the number of SUDs and it might encourage the cheapest rather than the most appropriate solutions.

Reservoirs

11. Despite repeated lobbying by LGA and a recommendation in the EFRA Committee report into the draft Bill, there is still no appropriate mechanism for the recovery of emergency planning costs . T here are already existing models that have been successfully used for some time , COMAH being one , and LGA recommends that this Inquiry looks again at the advantages of applying this model .

Insurance cover for flood risk

12. Finally, the LGA wish to highlight the danger that if current levels of investment in flood risk management are not maintained , the insurance industry may withdraw its agreement to provide flood risk cover. It is essential that the 5.5m properties in flood risk areas are protected by affordable insurance. Without this, we are in danger of creating blight, unbalancing the housing market and undermining social cohesion. A longside any new flood and water legislation, we must develop a system of insurance that incentivises protection and resilience.

7 October 2010