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Flood Resilience Strategy

Introduction

Agency board report number: SEPA 24-25-003

Flooding is Scotland’s biggest climate adaptation challenge. Scotland’s climate has changed and as a consequence exposure to all types of flooding has increased and will continue to do so. 

The ways in which floods have been managed up to now need to be supplemented by new and more sustainable approaches if we are to meet the challenges ahead. It will require a much broader strategy focused on strengthening the country’s flood resilience at all levels.

In response to this, the 2022/2023 Programme for Government made a commitment to consult on a flooding strategy for Scotland, including how we can build community flood resilience and engage a broader range of delivery partners to deliver more diverse flood management actions faster than has previously been possible.

Background

Scottish Government will own the strategy and are leading its development. This is being done in a collaborative and inclusive way to ensure it is co-developed and co-owned. A variety of stakeholder groups have been established to help advise and steer the work.

SEPA is Scotland’s flood forecasting and flood risk management authority. It has a key role in shaping the strategy. It is represented on the Flood Resilience Strategy Strategic Leads Group and the Programme Board.

Over the course of 2023, the Scottish Government undertook a programme of engagement, delivered by Sniffer, ClimateXChange, and Scottish Flood Forum. This asked community representatives, practitioners, and researchers what the Flood Resilience Strategy must address. The engagement included 12 workshops attended by more than 300 people and an online survey that ran over October and November and received 57 responses.  

Scottish Government are currently using the feedback from this engagement exercise to help draft consultation questions. These are being reviewed at the time of writing. The public consultation is expected to begin in late spring. This will run for 12 weeks with implications assessed over the summer. Final publication of the strategy is expected in Autum 2024.

The Issues

Scottish Government indicate that the Strategy will take a long-term view to 2045 and beyond and capture what changes we need to start to make now if we are to achieve a sustainable level of flood resilience for vulnerable communities in the long term. The strategy will re-frame how we consider our flooding challenge. Shifting from “fixing” flooding problems to creating climate adapted, flood resilient places that are well designed and where flooding has a low impact.

Scottish Government is aligning the Strategy with other relevant Scottish Government policy development currently underway, including:

• Policy developments for the future of the water industry in Scotland in response to the climate emergency. This includes drought approaches.
• Scottish Government is developing the Strategy as part of Scotland’s Third National Adaptation Plan (“SNAP3”).

The feedback so far has been distilled into three themes for the Strategy:

• People: Involving people in decisions about improving flood resilience in their places and highlighting the contributions individuals can make to community flood resilience.
• Places: What changes we must make to our places to increase our flood resilience.
• Processes: Making changes to the way we do things and the way we work together to enable us to create flood resilient places. As part of this, alternative approaches to funding are being considered.

All of these areas require further shaping and discussions as the consultation questions are finalised and the consultation responses absorbed in the coming months.

As a consequence, implications for SEPA are not yet known. Potential examples could be as follows: 

• The processes element could, potentially, redefine sustainable flood management and therefore change the nature of the partners and actions that SEPA is required to coordinate under the Flood Risk Management Act. 
• The process element could also involve a clarification and realignment of roles and responsibilities across Scotland’s key flooding partners.

The intention is for Scottish Government representatives to attend a Board session at a future session to begin discussions on these issues.

Recommendations

The Board is asked to note the ongoing development of the flooding strategy. 

The Board is asked to note that it will have implications for the work of all Scotland’s flooding partners, including SEPA. The intention is that these implications will be actively discussed and considered over the course of the coming months, including at a joint Board session with Scottish Government.