Scotland is to establish a national flood advisory service.

The Flood Advisory Service will provide support and advice on building flood resilience to delivery partners and communities and provide the governance framework and gateway process for progressing high value flood actions such as flood protection schemes – National Flood Resilience Strategy.

• This service will provide support and advice on building flood resilience to delivery partners and communities.
• It will provide the governance framework and gateway process for progressing high value flood actions such as flood protection schemes.

• Providing support for a broader range of flood actions (including property level flood resilience):
  • We will review flooding budgets to assess how a proportion of flood funding can be directed to support a broader range of flood actions including smaller flood protection schemes and property level flood resilience where the evidence suggests they can provide a positive contribution to improving flood resilience.
  • We will seek new flood resilience partners across the public and private sector to better influence decisions where positive impacts for flood resilience can be achieved.
  • We will seek to influence policy across sectors who can contribute to creating flood resilient places.
  • We will explore how public and private finance can contribute to creating flood resilient places.
• Improving flood resilience through data:
  • We will work with partners to review how we can improve our presentation and use of data to drive flood resilient activity.
  • We will use data to raise community awareness of current and future flood exposure to inform decision making and support communities on their climate adaptation journeys.
  • We will develop new datasets to improve decision making.

Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA)

• An Island Community Impact Assessment (ICIA) tests any new policy, strategy or service which is likely to have an effect on an island community which is significantly different from the effect on other communities. This became a legal duty in December 2020 under the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018.
• The FRS is based around three key themes: people, place, and process. The FRS should not have differential implications for island communities. The themes of people, places and processes are high-level and can be applied in a range of contexts and according to the needs of different communities.
• An ICIA screening has been completed and can be found on the Scottish Government website

Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy in the Scottish Government Gillian Martin said:

“Floods like we saw in October 2023 during Storm Babet show that global warming is already influencing weather events in Scotland. Over the coming decades, we will see greater economic, social and environmental impacts as sea levels rise, and rainfall intensities and river flows increase because of climate change. By 2080, it is estimated that the number of properties at risk of flooding in Scotland could rise from 284,000 to almost 400,000.

“Our National Flood Resilience Strategy therefore puts communities at its heart – with a focus on building community flood resilience and reducing the impacts of flooding on people, businesses, and housing.

“It supports an increase in the range and rate of delivery of actions both to manage our flood exposure, and to reduce the impacts of flooding when it does occur.

“This builds on work already under way to create more flood resilient places. In addition to the £42 million we provide annually to local authorities for flood resilience, we have committed an additional £150 million over the course of this Parliament to deliver improved flood resilience and we propose to commit a further £15 million as part of our draft Budget for 2025-26.”