Project Update
Past editions of the newsletter:
In December 2007, Phil Woolas, Minister of State for the Environment, set out the Implementation Plan for the Environment Agency’s Strategic Overview for all sea flooding and coastal erosion risk management (see associated press notice and non-technical guide).
Under the approach which Ian Pearson announced in June 2007 (summarised in the attached diagram) the Environment Agency will become the lead organisation for all flood risk management while management of coastal erosion risk will remain with local authorities under an Environment Agency strategic overview. The Environment Agency will:
- Become responsible for managing and quality assuring the production of all Shoreline Management Plans.
- Assess all risk, prioritise risk management programmes, allocate and manage Government funding for work programmes.
- Ensure the effective procurement, delivery and future management, operation and maintenance of all capital works (with local authorities continuing to propose and deliver work on the ground, where they have the skill and expertise to do so effectively, under Environment Agency’s strategic oversight).
- Be given powers, concurrently with local authorities, to undertake coast protection work including, having powers to refuse approval for new coastal erosion works and to remove existing defences or build new defences, where this is necessary to fulfill the objectives of, or can be justified under, the Water Framework Directive.
The Regional Flood Defence Committees’ role will be extended to embrace coastal erosion (and they will also oversee all sea flooding, including that currently undertaken by local authorities). To reflect this widened remit, representatives of relevant coastal groups will be brought onto the Regional Flood Defence Committees. Regional Flood Defence Committees will not, however, have levy raising powers in relation to coastal erosion as this would represent an unfunded new burden on local authorities.
Coastal Groups will be reconstituted to become larger (and hence fewer) and more strategic organisations with fully inclusive membership and consistently strong representation from the Environment Agency.
There is a substantial implementation programme to be taken forward, and officials have worked closely with Environment Agency and local authority colleagues in drawing up a detailed implementation plan.
Objectives/Background
There is currently a complex and confusing matrix of responsibilities for managing sea flooding and coastal erosion risk management. Through giving the Environment Agency a new strategic overview role for managing all sea flooding and coastal erosion risk on the coast the Government aim to rationalise existing responsibilities to help ensure that:
- We achieve consistency and conformity with Water Framework Directive objectives
- We take a holistic and sustainable approach, including for robust and evidence based long term decision making;
- Our approach is truly risk driven;
- There are clearer roles and accountabilities;
- We deliver the Water Framework Directive public participation objectives and that there is effective stakeholder engagement including an appropriate level of local, regional and national democratic input to the decision making process;
- Financial planning and management arrangements provide the best value for money from the investment programme, including reducing the risk of project cost overruns; and
- We make best use of technical expertise and engineering resource.
These objectives flow from the overarching goals of Making space for water, the Water Framework Objective and other Defra initiatives including the Department’s delivery strategy which encompasses effective governance principles.
Approach to developing the EA Strategic Overview
A Project Board, comprising officials from Defra, Environment Agency and the Local Government Association, has considered proposals for the form of the Environment Agency Strategic Overview and as key members of the Project Board the Environment Agency and the Local Government Association have helped steer the approach of this project. They have been fully involved in developing models, agreeing the scope and context of evidence gathering work. In helping to take forward our consideration, Defra has also had several discussions with representatives of the coastal local authorities representative organisations including the Local Government Association’s Coastal Special Interest Group, the Coastal Group Chairmen (who collectively represent all coastal local authorities) and the Local Government Technical Advisors Group.
Consultation
A public consultation exercise ran from August to October 2006 seeking views on Defra’s preferred approach to implementing the Environment Agency’s new strategic overview for all sea flooding and coastal erosion risk management. A summary of the consultation responses is available.
As part of the consultation, a Discussion Forum was held on 19 September 2006 to allow Regional Flood Defence Committees, Coastal Groups, the Environment Agency and other key stakeholders to consider and express their views.
Other supporting evidence
Coast Protection Authorities Skills and Capacity Review
To help inform the policy debate the Project Board
commissioned Keith Cole of Coast and Country Projects Limited to conduct a
short review of the skills and capacity of the Coast Protection Authorities, sampling approximately one third of them.
The resulting report presents a ‘snap shot in
time’ of the views of Coast Protection Authorities, on their current and anticipated future
capacity together with their general views on the impact of any change on
current arrangements. This information, together with other work and the views
of stakeholders (following a public consultation), will be fully considered
before the future policy direction is confirmed.
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