Flood recovery framework
Sets out how we support communities and local councils after flooding.
Activation of the Framework
Activation roles
Ministers
Scottish Minsters may choose to proactively activate the Framework or respond to a local council request for the Framework to be activated.
Local councils
Local councils can submit a request to us requesting activation of the Framework where they believe activation thresholds are likely to be met in their area.
Evidence requirements and risk sharing
Where the Framework has not been proactively activated by Ministers, local councils must submit a request for consideration to Ministers within two weeks of a severe flood event. An initial estimate of the number of homes and businesses that have been impacted should be provided as part of this request to inform decision making.
It is recognised that one of the challenges following such events is gathering accurate, rapid information on impacts such as how many homes and businesses have been flooded. In part this is because the local council is understandably focused on responding to the event. Nevertheless, local councils must be confident that the scale of the flood impacts for the storm event merits a request to Ministers to activate the Framework.
Once the Framework is activated, the local council will be expected to engage closely with us to refine their impact estimates. The local authority will be expected to pay the relevant household and business recovery grants out of their own funds if the number of impacted homes and businesses are subsequently considerably less than initially used to justify activation of the Framework. This would only occur where the availability of flood recovery grants has already been publicised to the affected communities. This is to ensure that the Framework is only utilised for flood events of sufficient severity.
Criteria for activation
Ministers will consider Met Office weather warnings and the significance of likely impacts of any storm event to determine whether the Framework shall be activated.
As an indication, activation would typically require similar impacts to those seen during Storm Babet in 2023. In total, over 400 flood recovery grants were distributed across 4 local councils because of Storm Babet, with greater than 50 properties affected in 3 of the eligible local councils