Storm Babet and flood protection schemes: EIR release

Information requested

1: How much in total has the Scottish Government given out for Storm Babet, with a breakdown of these costs?

2: Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government, including analysis, policy documents and minutes from meetings, about how much Storm Babet damage has cost overall?

3: How many formal flood protection schemes or engineering works planned for floods have been built in the last five years, can you list them, and how many are planned in the future?

• Could you list the original completion date, when they will now be completed and why they have been delayed, the number of properties protected in each completed and incomplete scheme, plus the initial forecast and final expected cost of each of them?
• Can you complete these details for all of those schemes mentioned above?

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the Purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two differentregimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Question 1

The Scottish Government has provided £1,102,200 in funding to Local Authorities for Storm Babet support. In addition to the above funding figure, the Ministerial taskforce agreed an additional package of support for people whose homes and businesses were flooded by Storm Babet. This included:

• £100,000 was provided to Angus Council through the Homelessness Prevention Fund to help families resettle and rebuild their lives.
• £95,000 to Angus Council towards the cost of the post-flood and optioneering reports for Brechin.

The Scottish Government also set aside a budget of £1.8 million to support farmers in repairing flood banks damaged by the extreme rainfall during October. The Agricultural Floodbank Repair Grant Scheme closed on 15 January 2024, receiving 70 applications totaling £1.52 million of which £523,289 has been paid out as of the date of your request.

Further additional funding has been provided via the Bellwin Scheme. It may help if I explain that part of the financial support for those affected by Storm Babet would have been paid via the Bellwin Scheme which allows Scottish Ministers to make additional revenue support available to Local Authorities to assist with immediate and unforeseen costs in dealing with the aftermath of emergency incidents. 

Activations and associated financial support via the Bellwin Scheme do not exist in isolation and it is possible that a Local Authority could experience multiple incidents in a given financial year.

Subsequently, it is not possible to attribute any claim (and by extension a specific amount of financial support given) to Storm Babet specifically. However, I can confirm that £16.1 million of funding has been provided for 2023-24 Bellwin claims to date.

Question 2

I have included copies of the information you have requested in Annex B. 

On reviewing materials within the scope of your request, exceptions have been applied in line with the EIRs. The exceptions applied can be found in Annex A.

Question 3

To date a total of 15 Flood Protection Schemes as outlined in the 2016-2021 Flood Risk Management Strategy have been completed. I have provided a list of these below for your convenience:

• Huntly (2017)
• Newmill (2017)
• Kirkwall (2018)
• Dundee (2018)
• White Cart Water Phase 3 (2019)
• Camlachie Burn (2019)
• Port Glasgow - Bouverie Burn (2020)
• Smithton and Culloden (2021)
• Drumnadrochit (2022)
• Broughty Ferry (2022)
• New Cumnock (2022)
• Kirkintilloch - Park Burn (2022)
• Caol and Lochyside (2023)
• Arbroath (2023)
• Stonehaven (2023)

The Scottish Government has provided further information on schemes that are currently ongoing as part of our response to Parliamentary Question S6W-24036.

I have also included links below to publications from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) in relation Flood Risk Management Planning information that you may find helpful:

• Local FRM Plans | Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
• Flood Risk Management Plans | SEPA

Local authorities are responsible for the development and delivery of flood protection schemes and more detailed information on each of the schemes can be obtained from relevant local authorities as they would be best placed to answer specific questions on each of the respective schemes. Contact information for relevant local authorities can be found via the above noted SEPA publications.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202400420659 - Information Released - Annex A and B

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