On the same day that the National Flood Emergency Framework for England is published, the government has announced that it will be funding local authorities to carry out flooding risk assesments. A pot of £2m has been allocated for helping with the risk assesments along with a £1m draft strategy for improving skills in flood risk management.
However what appears to be lacking is any hint of money for flood defences, flood avoidance technology or business continuity and disaster recovery measures. But hey at least when a flood occurs we can see on a piece of paper that the town was at risk!
Perhaps I’m being a little harsh, but as the National Flood Emergency Framework for England is also published today I was perhaps expecting a little more specific information and guidance than it actually delivers. It does refer to responsibilities under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and says how communications should be considered:
Under the section, ‘Detailed planning on developing a multi-agency flood plan’ (p.132) the following is written:
Communication arrangements: This section should cross-refer to LRF telecommunication plans where they exist. Where they don’t exist, a section should be inserted in the MAFP on how communications between responding organisations would work in the case of any public networks failing.
In addition on p.67 it reads:
‘All agencies should assume that telecommunications may be compromised during flood events and include provision for dealing with a failure.’
While this does sound like music to my ears, if local authorities aren’t meeting the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act then why would they also adhere to this message?
I’d certainly be interested to know how many LRF’s have telecoms plans to which the framework frequently makes reference to…
