Conclusion 11

Over the period 2019–20 to 2023–24, the Environment Agency’s annual accounts were qualified five times in succession because it could not accurately account for its flood management assets.27 However, the agency recently received a clean audit opinion for its 2024–25 accounts, its first since 2018–19, and we asked it about the steps taken to achieve this.28 It told us this improvement was only possible due to significant and sustained commitment of time, effort and resources by the agency over a number of years. It worked closely with the NAO and the GFF and took actions in several key areas, which included establishing a database of 10 million data points on the size and condition of all 255,700 of its flood assets, investing in IT systems, and changing the culture and outlook of frontline teams.29