A fresh approach to delivering and funding Scottish flood protection

In October 2023, Storm Babet delivered a sustained downpour over the Scottish Lowlands and East Coast, causing the North Esk river in Angus to burst its banks. This disrupted power, infrastructure and heightened public concern over flooding across Scotland and the UK.

As climate change affects UK weather patterns, we will need to become accustomed to preparing for more of these events.

Scotland should be given due credit for already delivering a sophisticated array of projects through the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009. Fourteen local flood management plans are currently being implemented, with 42 flood protection schemes pursued in its first delivery cycle of the prioritised schemes, Cycle 1.

These projects will serve to address flood risk in the potentially vulnerable areas highlighted in the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency’s (SEPA) flood risk assessments.

Scotland’s approach has rightly been to prioritise schemes according to the damages they will help to avoid, protecting the most vulnerable areas and maximising the benefit of public finance. However, as the impact of climate change becomes increasingly more apparent, challenges to flood defence delivery are too – most significantly, the scale of delivery and financial investment required to raise the bar.

We have identified three key factors in Scotland’s strategy that will help to deliver a fresh approach to delivering and funding flood protection schemes across regions.

1. Recognise greater complexity and get cycles back on track

Cycle 1 has seen notable successes that have demonstrated the importance of investment in flood defences. At Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, flood defences held firm in the face of Storm Babet, avoiding a repeat of devastating floods in previous decades.

However, the roll-out under Cycle 1 has not been uniform, with many of first cycle of investments still outstanding, despite Cycle 2 projects commencing in 2022.

Since the original conception of the approach to investment cycles, a greater understanding of the scale of solutions required, for both communities and the economy, has been developed.

With only 14 of the original 42 projects being completed to date, a greater level of planning, coordination, consultation and engineering is required to meet the scale of the challenge.

An even more forensic attitude to programme planning – including detailed assessments of capability, supply chain capacity, material availability and potential design solutions – must be factored in even earlier. This needs to be informed by lessons learnt and data from successful project cycles – ensuring the right balance is struck between prioritising critical schemes and guaranteeing their delivery.

2. Share the risk and responsibility around funding

Establishing a programmatic approach is important, not just for practical delivery, but for cost too. Programme deliverability and affordability are inextricably linked and challenges to scheme funding have been a significant barrier to-date.

The Scottish Government has fronted the first 80 percent of costs for flood resilience projects under the first investment cycle, boosting confidence and helping to ensure the schemes could get underway.

However, the task of continuing to finance to this level with the scale of the challenge is clear.

Responsibility for delivering 20 percent of the total budget has fallen to local authorities against a backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis, high inflation and constrained central finances. Rather than solely thinking about those who have responsibility for reducing flooding, we need to also focus on those who benefit from the certainty and protection afforded by flood defence. This includes the development industry, which can benefit through increased investment confidence. Likewise, the insurance sector can benefit, as it can limit its risks and, in turn, lower premiums.

Risks and responsibilities, including those related to cost, should be shared more proportionately across all those invested in the programme, building a tangible return on investment into flood resilience infrastructure. This would help usher a shift from current strategies based around risk mitigation to ones which seek to create value, and factor in these potential benefits right from the outset when business cases are being built.

This would improve incentivisation and facilitate more thorough and informed development of long-term strategies – moving away from the temptation to simply cut or underestimate costs and timetables. 

3. Adopt a holistic approach

A joined-up approach which encourages shared responsibility is crucial to developing a strategy that addresses and solves the challenge before it’s too late.

Adopting a more holistic model for flood resilience will help ensure that individual projects are viewed as part of one wider programme.

This will provide a clearer overview of the pipeline, allowing clients to balance funding for competing projects. It will also unite public and private sector partners in the shared goal to address the risks of climate change.

Fostering a positive culture with shared risk and responsibility will encourage better communication between the parties benefitting from different projects. A collaborative dialogue between all stakeholders, from policymakers to investors to the community, will help bring forward a clearer vision to tackle the issue country-wide and create a platform where lessons can be shared to improve the delivery of these major programmes.

Flood risk management in the future

It’s increasingly likely that the sector will need to embrace alternative engineering routes to flood mitigation, with the majority of local and national investment in flood resilience in hard engineered structures.

This, in many cases, is the most appropriate solution today, but it is important that we get on the front foot of identifying and developing different techniques and methods which will combat future risk.