Minutes:
Officer Ross Price and Ruth Donovan presented a verbal report:
Welsh Government is holding its own scrutiny session on 8th October with the minister for the environment to review their response to last winter’s flooding. Welsh Local Government Association is leading on a combined response from all local authorities, with their own Flood Officer, Jean-Francois Dulong. He will collate the responses from local governments, to present to the scrutiny session on 8th October. We received an email from Welsh Government with questions, which give a good focus for our response; we are putting that together at the moment. We are in regular contact with the Flood Team from Welsh Government, with whom we have a good relationship.
The first question from Welsh Government is whether the current funding provided by them for flooding and coastal erosion management, and for relevant authorities to provide emergency flood response, is sufficient. We have statutory duties under the Flood and Water Management Act to manage flood risk, which in our case is from ordinary watercourses, and ground and surface water flooding. The risk management authority for main river flooding, which is what affected Monmouthshire most last winter (from the Wye, Monnow and Usk), is Natural Resources Wales. We are therefore quite limited in what we can do, and what schemes we can deliver, regarding main river flooding. We get a revenue fund of £105k a year, to deliver our statutory duties, which include delivering all of our activities that are set out in our Flood Risk Management plan and strategy. We also have statutory duties to undertake assets maintenance, inspection, recording, mapping, investigations, and keeping up with training and software. Most notably, from January 2019, we became an approving body for drainage matters on new developments. We haven’t had additional funding to cover this cost, which has been considerable. The responses to last winter’s flooding has led to a backlog in other workstreams, such as applications in the SAB process, but also delivering our day-to-day duties. Additional funding would help us to deal with this.
The capital element of funding is slightly better than the revenue. It covers all of the flood schemes that we promote. Typically, there is a flood event, we investigate its sources and mechanisms, identify who is affected, then put in an application to Welsh Government to deliver a flood scheme, which might be building flood walls or barriers, etc. In recent years, we’ve been very successful in getting this funding. Last year’s flooding has increased the number of schemes that are required, and brought to the fore longstanding issues. We are developing a five-year forward programme now. Over the last three years we have received about £160k of grant funding to deliver flood schemes; this year, we have £130k alone. The total figure is likely to increase due to last year’s flooding, but we’re in competition with the other local authorities.
Following the winter flooding, Welsh Government made available an emergency flood response grant; we were successful in applying for just over £100k, for dealing with the immediate response of the flood event: sandbagging, emergency clearance of culverts and watercourses, etc. This important work was performed excellently; recouping the cost was a big bonus.
The next element of funding is a grant made available by Welsh Government for flood-affected citizens. This was limited to £1k for people without insurance, and £500 for those with insurance. As a local authority, we administered this grant, which involved inspecting the properties and establishing contact centres for the public to call to request it. This was another strain on our resources, for which we haven’t been able to recoup any costs – we will highlight this in our response.
The major piece of funding was the Emergency Financial Assistance scheme (EFAS), which was split into two phases: response and recovery. This is the main area where we have had difficulties. The scheme is not an automatic entitlement, but has to be activated by Welsh Government for a particular event (they did so for the floods in February.) Certain thresholds then apply: in 19/20 our threshold was £313k, which means we have to spend up to that amount before we are eligible for any assistance. Any money received over that £313k, we then receive 85% of that – therefore, the authority has to find 15% of that fund. Terms and conditions apply to this fund. For us, the main conditions which we had from Welsh Government at the time were that they would be flexible with the funding, that they might not enforce the 85% threshold, and that they were in fact encouraging local authorities to apply, even if their spending was likely to be below the threshold, giving us an indication that we would be eligible. They also added an element about awarding council tax and business rate discounts to households and businesses affected by the floods. They encouraged us to give those households three months’ relief, and claim it under the scheme.
Collating these response costs was a big job. We did so, and found that we had only spent £321k, meaning an £8k difference to our threshold; once the 85% was applied, we could claim £6857. Overall, therefore, it was very disappointing because the actual terms and conditions that we received for the grant were the standard ones. Many of the things we had been led to believe we might receive didn’t happen. The general feeling across Wales is that it was a pointless exercise, with very little funding coming out of it.
We are also looking to collate recovery costs for Welsh Government colleagues. We identified £8.8m in costs over three years that we are going to incur for Monmouthshire. We have recently received an indication that we will get some of that funding: around £2.3m for 2021. We have a very short window to spend that money, and it’s not an ideal time of year for works such as resurfacing roads. Unfortunately, the money has come with very little information as to whether we can slip any of it into next year if we don’t spend it.
The second question is whether more emergency funding will be necessary this winter to assist local authorities to deal with flooding. Last winter highlighted the limited resources that we have to respond to these events while maintaining other duties. The work done by Highways and Grounds teams also needs to be considered. We will certainly need additional funding if we have another event like last year. One issue with emergency financial support last year was that the cost had to be incurred and claimed by the end of the financial year – the flood event occurred in mid-February and continued into mid-March, so our work clearing watercourses etc. continued a long time beyond the end of the financial year. As that pot of money therefore disappeared, we tried to claim the money back through EFAS but, as mentioned, we were unsuccessful in recouping some of those costs.
The third question is whether local authorities are sufficiently supported to recover from a major flooding event; we are still in this recovery phase from last winter, and are likely to remain so for a long time. This question hinges also on financial matters (through EFAS), as has been described. It also goes on to mention undertaking investigations and making changes to manage the risk of recurrence: we are looking at many flood schemes now, and are pushing NRW regularly to progress matters with the various main river flooding throughout the county. One of the major issues we had last winter concerned private flood defences and bunds, which tend to be in rural areas; most notably, there are bunds in Llanwenarth, Prioress Mill Lane and Llanbadoc. These are large, earth bunds that are not currently managed by NRW or us, and are not subject to inspections or maintenance. These three bunds failed catastrophically last winter. The Llanbadoc bund has now been recognised as a NRW asset, which is very good news. Our Leader, Councillor Fox, is in regular contact with NRW on this matter. We are limited as an authority in what we can do, as they are main river assets. With the rains already starting this Autumn/Winter, the residents in these areas are becoming very anxious. We will continue to pressure Welsh Government and NRW, especially for the former to release funds much quicker.
The fourth question is how effective the Flood and Coastal Erosion Committee is in providing an advisory and coordinating role to Welsh Government. We are not particularly involved in these matters. The committee is fairly new. We can’t really provide a response other than to say that as we don’t have a direct dialogue with the committee, perhaps that could be improved.
Cabinet Member Jane Pratt made the following additional comments:
The picture presented today is a very worrying one. Our officers dealt in an exemplary way during the flooding. Officer Price and I attended a conference last year, at which the Met Office clearly told us what we will face: we can be certain that very wet winters and very hot summers will continue. It is very difficult because we can’t start work for the additional money (beyond the £2.3m we have received) as there is no guarantee we will recoup it from Welsh Government. We do not have the significant financial reserves of a county like RCT, which also experienced terrible flooding. Another great concern is NRW: it is poorly funded, slow to respond, and under-resourced. Coal levels with rising floodwater are also a problem. I have been in post since last May, and have not been invited to any meetings by the Flood and Coastal Erosion Committee, which is disgraceful. The impacts are still being felt: for example, NRW did not do the necessary work on the A466 road (following a landslide), which means we will have to close it next year. Inefficiencies in these organisations are having far-reaching impacts.
Challenge:
In Usk, over the years there has been build up in the river either side of the bridge. Is it correct that NRW is responsible for dredging rivers, and will funding become available for them to do so with the Usk?
Yes, NRW is responsible for rivers. They don’t routinely dredge them, however. Unless a river is dredged all the way to its outfall, dredging in one location merely creates a low spot that then naturally fills back up. But, NRW does remove accumulations of gravel, so we will approach them about the islands that have gradually formed in Usk, to see if they can inspect them, with a view to removing them.
What is the deadline for responding to WLGA?
The deadline to respond to WLGA is the end of the day tomorrow.
Chair’s summary:
The members have all recognised the strong response to last winter’s flooding by MCC, and voiced their appreciation for the efforts made by officers during this crisis, as well as by residents raising money for the relief fund. Councillor Roden suggested that 1015 regulations be reconsidered if we are to have wetter winters constantly, and suggested that there might come a time when houses that are being flooded regularly shouldn’t be reinstated, with the floodplain areas returned to meadows.
Councillor Pratt highlighted the importance of engagement opportunities, and ensuring direct dialogue with ministers and senior officials. We will submit a robust response to Welsh Government, as the officers have explained, but it is important that each local authority has the opportunity to converse directly with ministers, and highlight their particular issues. There were concerns at the outset, when NRW was established, about the long-term funding commitment; the information we have been given today is yet more concerning.