Councils have new flood management responsibilities at a time of spending cuts. So can they cope, asks Andrew Jepp in the latest of PF’s regular series of sponsored columns
The big freeze at the beginning of this year, combined with the globally disruptive volcanic ash that brought UK aviation to a standstill, showed the far-reaching effects that severe weather can have on infrastructure.
For many local authorities, such climate-based ‘Black Swan’ risks pose an increasingly pervasive threat. And, with the Flood and Water Management Act receiving Royal Assent in April, local authorities will also soon have increased responsibility for managing, handling and mitigating flood-related disaster.
Yet with prospective public sector budget cuts as severe as the weather outlook, how best can local authorities respond? An estimated 5 million people live in flood risk areas across England and Wales, making flooding a very real risk for householders and their wider communities – as well as for the services provided to them by local authorities.
The new Flood Act clarifies where the boundaries of responsibility fall and allows Lead Local Flood Authorities to tailor a risk management approach to suit their locality, working with external partners – and indeed other authorities – where necessary on anything from drainage to data gathering.
From a local authority’s perspective, while the approach is one of partnership and collaboration, ultimate responsibility still lies firmly with the LLFA. Outsourcing is obviously nothing new to most local authorities and many routinely work with specialist partners on a plethora of services and functions – often to great effect.
But these new statutory responsibilities for managing flood response and reservoir capacity at a local level significantly increase both the onus on, and the risk for, LLFAs to successfully co-ordinate various partners and peer organisations across regional government.
Planning effectively for weather and climate-based disasters – or, in fact, disaster of any kind – will be pivotal to local authorities’ ability to provide consistently good services in the future.
Previously in this column, I have referred to the importance of organisational resilience in undergoing change. This resilience is equally pertinent when it comes to disaster planning. The snow and ice that caused havoc earlier this year are proof of just how disruptive weather can be. Failure to plan and fully embed crisis plans into the business model – driven from a senior level – is a slippery slope.
While local authorities have traditionally focused on civil contingencies in terms of business continuity and resilience planning, now they have to bring business continuity management planning into the wider risk management programme. This more holistic approach will help ensure a focus on vital assets, services and outcomes, while integrating with the risk management and transfer practices in place.
The Act sets out specific requirements for local authorities in terms of managing floods and coastal erosion. It requires them to develop flood risk strategies relevant to their local area, with the aim of preventing the kind of devastation caused by the June 2007 floods, which cost billions of pounds. This more consciously risk-based approach can only be a good thing.
However, while these requirements are a positive move in helping local authorities better plan for climate and weather-based risks, they also come at a time of great uncertainty across the entire public sector. With cuts of £6bn announced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, it is uncertain whether councils will have sufficient access to the capacity and skills needed to handle the wider collaborative working imposed by the Act.
Embedding resilience into flood risk management is all well and good, but it needs the corresponding resources and know-how within local government to make it a reality. Further, authorities need to consider opportunities to build and maximise major incident response capability through their partner and supplier relationships.
If the events of recent years have taught us anything it is that the only thing we know for sure about unpredictable weather is that there is more of it to come. Instilling a risk-based, collaborative approach is a welcome step to addressing that challenge. But the real storm local authorities must weather is the altogether more unpredictable and trying climate of spending cuts.
A combination of increased responsibility and increased reliance on partnership working will undoubtedly help improve flood prevention. But this carries its own risks, which authorities would be wise to take shelter from.
Andrew Jepp is head of local government at Zurich Municipal
