Recommendation 5

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.