Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 5
5
The current indicators used to monitor national flood risk do not cover important elements such...
Conclusion
The current indicators used to monitor national flood risk do not cover important elements such as risks to agricultural land, business premises, and infrastructure. The Agency uses the number of homes ‘better protected’ as the main performance indicator for its capital investment programme. It also uses its National Flood Risk Assessment model to estimate the number of properties at risk of flooding each year, although changes in methodology make comparisons over different years uncertain. The Agency does not measure what is happening nationally to the overall flood risk for agricultural land or infrastructure. In addition to the specific indicators it is developing for the capital investment programme, the Department has also committed to developing a new set of national flood risk indicators by spring 2022. Recommendation: The Department’s new set of national flood risk indicators should incorporate all types of flood risk to ensure they provide a full picture of what is happening to flood risk including for homes, non-residential property, agricultural land, and infrastructure across England and should facilitate the comparison of flood risk across previous years so progress can be clearly assessed.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Spring 2022 5.2 The department and the Agency are developing a framework for understanding overall flood risk. This framework uses an improved method for calculating the risk reduction achieved by the capital investment programme alongside changes in risk due to other factors such as housing development, climate change and the condition of flood defence assets. Flood risk will be measured using expected annual damages (EAD) and changes to numbers of properties at different flood likelihood. During 2021, further work will be done to improve these measures, more accurately identifying the contribution of different factors, including the capital investment programme, to changes in overall risk. The Agency will also consider what changes could be made to the current National Flood Risk Assessment (NaFRA) to improve the interim position before a new NaFRA becomes available in 2024. 5.3 This work on understanding overall flood risk includes the development of a set of KPIs that will better track progress of the 2021-2027 capital programme specifically. By Spring 2022, the department will have in place the full suite of metrics (KPIs), agreed with the Agency, and a new oversight process that will aid in monitoring flood risk. Methods of data collection, validations and reporting will be subject to ongoing refinement once the metrics are in place. 5.4 In addition, the department has committed to develop an overall national set of indicators by Spring 2022 to monitor trends over time in tackling flood and coastal erosion in England. These will enable a better understanding of the impacts of government’s policies and will inform future action. The department will set out further details in due course.