- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 15 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what efficiency savings are generated each year within the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s flood protection programme; whether these are sufficient to meet inflationary pressures so that spending in real terms is maintained, and how these inflationary pressures are being met to ensure that flood protection is well funded.
Answer
While responsibility for flood warning schemes rests with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), it is for local authorities to determine the most appropriate flood alleviation measures for their areas. £126 million for such measures is included in the local government settlement for 2008-09 to 2010-11, and the distribution took into account existing flood alleviation commitments and flood risk.
SEPA''s efficiency savings are generated across the range of its activities and not attributed to any one particular service. They are then deployed over the organisation as a whole to ensure delivery of key priorities and objectives including its flood warning programme.
- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 15 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what the criteria are for designating an area as being at a high risk of flooding.
Answer
Where the annual risk of flooding is greater than 1%, an area is considered to be at a high risk of flooding.
- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 15 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what improvements are planned to the existing flood defences around the coastline of Fife.
Answer
Improvements to existing flood defences are a matter for local authorities to determine. Any planned improvements to existing flood defences around the coastline of Fife lie with Fife Council and not the Scottish Government.
- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 15 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to reinforce flood defences against rising water levels resulting from global warming.
Answer
It is for local authorities to determine what steps need to be taken to improve flood defences in the light of climate change.
However, the Scottish Government has published its research on Climate Change: Flooding Occurrences Review (2002):
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2002/03/10817/File-1.
Climate Change: Review of Levels of Protection Offered by Flood Prevention Schemes UKCIP02 update (2003):
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/02/18789/32039.
- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 15 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what proportion of the population lives in coastal areas liable to flooding from the sea.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not have details of the population living in coastal areas liable to flooding from the sea. However, an in-house GIS analysis of the Indicative River and Coastal Flood Map (Scotland) published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) identifies the number of properties where the risk of flooding from the sea is more than the 0.5% annual probability.
Some 26,000 properties in Scotland are situated in the coastal flood zone as mapped by SEPA. This is about 1.0% of all residential and other properties in Scotland.
- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Stewart Stevenson on 15 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive how much housebuilding, sanctioned by planning authorities, has been carried out in (a) 2005, (b) 2006 and (c) 2007 to date on flood plains.
Answer
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) flood map shows an estimate of the areas of Scotland with a 0.5% or greater probability of being flooded in any given year “ in other words, those areas estimated to have a one in 200 or greater chance of being flooded in any given year. It provides an indication of areas likely to flood but is not appropriate for assessing risk to individual properties and cannot replace studies at a local scale. Information on housing developments approved by planning authorities in these areas is not held centrally.
- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 15 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what estimate it has made of the impact that carbon emission limiting measures currently in force will have on reducing the risks of sea flooding between now and 2040.
Answer
Measures to reduce emissions in Scotland will, by themselves, have no significant impact on reducing flood risk. Climate change is a global issue: it will require emission reductions at the global level to reduce its impacts. The Scottish Government has, however, taken steps to assess the impacts of climate change on Scotland. In connection with flood risk, in 2003 it published
Climate Change: Review of Levels of Protection Offered by Flood Prevention Schemes UKCIP02 Update, available on the Scottish Government website at:
www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/02/18789/32039.
This research provides an overview of the expected increased river and coastal flood risk in Scotland as a result of predicted climate change.
The future climate scenarios used as the basis of the above research were published by the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) in 2002, available at www.ukcip.org.uk, under the assumption of medium-high global emissions with the resulting increase in global temperature of 3.3 celsius. The UKCIP climate scenarios, including sea level rise, do not specifically take account of global or national strategies to mitigate climate change through emissions reductions measures and policies. The scenarios are based on assumptions of different development paths for the world ranging from low emissions development through to high emissions development.
- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 15 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what estimates have been made by it and local authorities of total public expenditure on sea coastal defences against flooding over the next (a) five and (b) 10 years.
Answer
The Scottish Government has not made estimates over these timescales nor do we differentiate between coastal flooding defence expenditure and other flood prevention or coast protection expenditure.
The government has distributed £126 million to local authorities for flood prevention and coast protection over the period 2008-11, rolled up into local authorities'' capital grant. It is, of course, for the local authority to decide how to allocate the total package of capital funding at its disposal according to local priorities.
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- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 April 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Russell on 8 April 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive which areas of Scotland have introduced sea defences to their coastlines in the last 10 years.
Answer
Perth and Kinross, North Ayrshire, and Argyll and Bute councils have carried out flood prevention schemes against coastal flooding in the last ten years.
- Asked by: David Stewart, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 13 March 2008
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Current Status:
Answered by Adam Ingram on 13 March 2008
To ask the Scottish Executive what progress it is making in delivering the SNP manifesto commitment to increase the entitlement to free nursery education for three and four-year-olds from 400 to 600 hours a year.
Answer
In autumn 2007, we increased entitlement to pre-school education from 412.5 to 475 hours per annum. As part of the concordat between COSLA and Scottish ministers, local government has agreed to increase the entitlement to 570 hours per annum in August 2010. We are now starting to consider options to deliver the final step in achieving a 50% increase in entitlement by 2011.
