Recommendation 24

The Agency published a report in 2020 which showed that people from more deprived areas faced greater flood risk than those living in less deprived areas, although the gap had narrowed in the last 15 years. The report also showed that the proportion of all homes ‘better protected’ as a result of the Agency’s programme that were in the 20% most deprived areas increased from 4% in 2011 to 29% in 2014 but then declined to 8% in 2019. The Department believed that this pattern was due to some large schemes in deprived areas happening early which led to the increase and then decline in investment. The National Audit Office found that the Department had not carried out any analysis to support its explanation of the pattern of investment in deprived areas. The partnership funding model is designed to ensure deprived areas do not miss out on investment as a result of challenges in securing partnership funding. The Department stated that it does not think there is an underlying problem with the model but acknowledged that it needs to do more to understand this.27