Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee

Good morning. Welcome back to this evidence session or these evidence sessions this morning in the committee. We are now moving on to the main focus of this session today, perhaps, which is our storm response inquiry, because, at the end of the autumn term, the committee agreed to conduct an inquiry into the response to storms. Of course, that's something that's been very prominent in many of our minds, especially in light of what happened with storms Bert and Darragh that hit Wales at the end of last year, so we're going to concentrate on our storm preparedness here in Wales, the resilience of the infrastructure, and also what lessons have been learnt from previous storms.

We are therefore turning in the first instance to the first formal evidence session as part of this work, and we're welcoming Simon Brown, who is the director of services at the Met Office, and Russell Turner, who is the head of the Flood Forecasting Centre. A very warm welcome to both of you.

I'll start, perhaps, just by asking you a general question: could you provide a short overview to us regarding the storm forecasting system in Wales, and how does that landscape work when it comes to forecasting that there are major weather events ahead of us, perhaps? Simon, would you like to go first?

Good morning and thank you, Chair, and thank you for the invite from yourself and the committee. So, as director of services at the Met Office, I cover our observations infrastructure across the UK and where we've got overseas territories, our weather forecasting services and all our digital outputs, which go to Government, industry and citizens on a daily basis. We're a 24/7 organisation. We're an executive agency of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology within UK Government and we're also the home of the Hadley centre, which provides climate advice around climate change and variability.

Part of being the UK national weather service provider is we provide a number of different weather services, whether that's day-to-day weather services to transport, sport, media, et cetera, but a fundamental part of that is providing a national severe weather service that is where we issue weather warnings from, so the yellow, amber or red, which you'll all be familiar with, particularly in recent months. So, that's the Met Office's role, to provide those weather warnings, to take our forecasting from our models, to interpret that, to provide human advice and then work that into a matrix that is based on likelihood of the events happening. Of course, weather has uncertainty and there are times where we've got much more certainty and confidence and we will be generally much higher on the matrix to say, 'We've got a medium to high level of confidence.' And there are occasions when we're more on the low end of the certainty, and I'll come on probably later on to talk about some of the scenarios that we run and how that works within our modelling system.

The other factor that goes into that is impacts, and impacts will vary depending on weather types, so, particularly with rainfall, we will work with our flooding partners, and, in Wales, we'll work with Natural Resources Wales to work out what are the flood impacts we're expecting to see from this volume of rainfall, and, again, that will be based on a confidence level. So, that's how we work from a warning perspective. Clearly, we had different warnings in place for Bert and Darragh, and I'm sure we will come on to that.

To complement that service, we are a category 2 responder, which came into force a couple of years ago. That really hasn't changed much for us, because we had already got 22 civil contingency advisers across the UK who work with local resilience forums, emergency planners, local government, to both support preparedness for severe weather, and so will involve themselves in training exercises when severe weather happens. They're the people who are going in talking to local resilience forums, sending the e-mails out, working on the preparation and also the recovery, because, obviously, weather continues to happen; part of the recovery efforts that happen across the UK and in Wales is to be able to make sure we can support the recovery of any weather events that happen. The CCAs, the civil contingencies advisers, will work, particularly in Wales, with the local resilience forums and local authorities to provide that advice. And, of course, we work with Russ's team, the Flood Forecasting Centre.

Indeed, and I was going to turn to you next for a similar kind of overview.

Thank you, and good morning, everybody. Bore da. Russell Turner, head of the joint Environment Agency, Met Office Flood Forecasting Centre, so the Flood Forecasting Centre came about following the catastrophic flooding of 2007 when we saw 56,000 properties flooded across England and Wales, and, in response to that, the detailed review that was undertaken was really to look for how we'd bring together the meteorological forecasting and the hydrological forecasting. So, the FFC covers both those areas. We sit in the Met Office, but work closely with the local forecasting centres around the country as well. So, there are seven local forecasting centres for England, and one for Wales in Cardiff. So, we cover England and Wales, and that is as we were set up prior to the vesting of Natural Resources Wales, but we very much still provide services for England and Wales on a 24/7 basis.

So, my team work operationally 24/7 and have been running that way for over 15 years now, which reflects the flood risk across England and Wales. And that’s a reflection of the coastal risk—which is extremely complicated around the coast of England and Wales, a very dynamic coastal environment with high tides, large Atlantic waves, and storm surges as well—river flooding, obviously, which is the subject of today’s discussion more, and also surface water, which is a really growing area of concern. As you’ll understand and no doubt know, the legislation behind that is extremely complicated with different responsibilities in different places, which we’ll probably touch on. We also cover groundwater flooding as well, which is a very persistent type of flooding, which isn’t as high an issue in Wales, but certainly is across southern England where communities can be affected for months on end.

So, we cover four sources of flooding, we run 24/7, and our main role is to really help the local centres understand the Met Office forecasts on the flood-modelling side, and then looking at how those impacts may play out, presenting scenarios and really informing the national response, whether that’s England or Wales. So, all category 1 and 2 responders are signed up for our services. We don’t face the public primarily, we face the emergency community. So, they get an advance heads-up on a situation that’s developing five days in advance, and we also provide some products and services for longer than that, so a 30-day flood outlook, and in slower times ahead of winter season, and in the summer season as well, training and exercise materials. That really covers, in a nutshell, the breadth of what we do.

Excellent, okay. That's a good starter for 10. Thank you so much, both of you. Right, Janet.

Thank you and welcome. I do not envy your role at the moment with such unpredictability in terms of what is a flooding incident—I don’t know how you do what you do. Anyway, how do you interact, both your organisations, with Natural Resources Wales?

Do you want to start, and then—?

Yes. So, we work really closely. As I say, we’ve got services in both England and Wales. Whilst the risk is comparable, there are unique features to Wales, so we work with NRW on tailored briefings in advance of flooding, and exercise material as well. But there is a commonality so responders can receive the same information, and if responders need to move across the border they can do that and receive the information. So, with our services, whilst they are common, there is a technical difference, which explains some of the differences. There’s a different level of scenarios provided for England and Wales, so we have to work technically in a different way with Wales than we do for England.

It's what I was going to ask you next.

And we are seeing this now. Whilst we started on common ground, the service is diverging as the needs diverge and investment levels diverge as well. So, it’s fair to say there’s a gap at the moment, and that gap potentially is growing in terms of the service that's provided.

There’s an increased interest in providing longer lead times for the response in England and more focus on extreme events, and there’s investment following that. The approach in Wales is linked to a scenario approach, rather than putting all of the rainfall information that we can through the flood models.

If I kind of explain it, the traditional approach would be to run a rainfall forecast once and put that through a flood model once. That’s only so much use at a certain level. So, the smaller your catchments and the longer the lead time and the more interested you are in extreme events, the more you want to run multiple rainfall forecasts through multiple flood models to give you a real spread of understanding the possible outcomes that we might face in three, four, five days’ time.

That’s quite hard to put into the emergency responder community, so what we do is we talk about scenarios. We’ll talk about providing the best estimate or a most likely scenario of what should happen in the next few days, and then an extreme of what could happen. That’s really what the response should be based on.

So, that’s the state of play at the moment, but what we’re developing for England is a full trial of putting the whole rainfall forecast through all of the flood models so we can really objectively assess those scenarios. That’s taking quite a lot of time and effort and investment, because, technically, moving a huge amount of data through from rainfall forecasts into flood models takes a lot of computer power, a lot of time, and a lot of resource from flood forecasters as well. It basically becomes a permanent job, rather than just something you can do in a short period of time. So, there is that gap between the scenarios, and that's something we're having to work on at the moment. So, we started on a common ground. The information for responders is common, but the technical way we do it behind the scenes is different, and invariably that's going to play out sometimes into the level of certainty that we've got in information.

Okay. So, on that, then, Russell, given that NRW exercises similar functions in Wales as the Environment Agency does in England, why is NRW not formally incorporated into the Flood Forecasting Centre in the same way as the Environment Agency? And should it be?

The staffing comes from the Environment Agency and the Met Office. There isn't currently the critical mass to draw on from Natural Resources Wales of forecasters. So, the—

Are we losing out here in Wales by not having that?

Well, the arrangement is to provide services into Wales, not staff the centre, and there’s a well-established service provision there. So, I think, at the moment, I wouldn’t say ‘losing out’, but there is a gap and it's opening up, because of the different levels of investment in the technical solutions. Now, across the country, this is what we see. Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales, they all have different flood forecasting systems, but all, essentially, by the same flood forecasting—.

But we have a lot of rain.

But the risk is different, and I think that’s the decision then. It is, ‘What is the right level of investment?’ So, I can say there's a gap, there is a growing gap, based on the different investment. And the investment is really following in England the increase from surface water flooding.

Right.

Okay. So, if you look at the overall national risk assessment, that’s where we’re putting more of our effort. So, we ran a trial this summer on rapid flood guidance, to provide the local flood authorities, risk management agencies, with more information through the summer. But we’re already thinking we now need to run that through the winter as well. So, the risk is changing very quickly on this.

Yes, it is.

So, it is right to consider what is the right level of service for Wales, and that's obviously your decision, based on what's right for communities.

And how urgent do you think it is to fill that gap?

I think there are long-running issues that come up time and time again in flood events. If I look at this Bert report, I look back at the Dennis report, there are still things to tick off there to be done, okay? And the risk is increasing as the climate warms. So, I don't think we can stand still. We need to start closing that gap, because where do we want to be? Do we want to be ahead of climate change or always chasing it?

Absolutely. Well, certainly, further ahead than we are now. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Did you want to come in, Carolyn? And then I'll come to Julie.

We heard that NRW were not called until flooding was actually happening in one of the areas we're looking at today. So, if the lead flood authorities get alerts, if they're all signed into alerts, and if they don't have the buy in with this, NRW, like the Environment Agency does, and they're not made aware of when a flood incident might happen, is that going to be an issue going forward?

I'd like to correct that. We discuss the risk every day. So, we're working 24/7 and it happens every day. We will talk to the local centres we need to. So, categorically, we did talk to Natural Resources Wales, and the decision on flood risk rests with Natural Resources Wales for days one and two. So, we look at the five days ahead. We've got the national models and tools for five days, so we do days three, four and five. So, we'll set out the broad scene. That worked well. The general heads up, 'This is coming', works well, and then we're looking at adding in the local models and the assessment then. That's why we need local centres. Across England and Wales, we've got 2,000 local flood models, so it's a massive exercise. There are 200 in Wales. They take the Met Office data, run that through the flood models and really jointly agree flood risk. That happens day in, day out. And it's happened this morning, ahead of Sunday's potential rainfall as well.

I think it's fair to say, if you look at the weather forecast, the rainfall we observed for storm Bert was pretty much in line with what we forecast. But the forecast is only then as good as the value chain and the comms you do to get people to take action. So, it's a decision not just about the weather forecast. Storm Bert was a really good example. The FFC flood models, in conjunction with NRW, were not showing the risk of flooding and I'm sure NRW will get into those reasons. This is why we kept the weather warning as yellow, because we saw the risk of medium impacts, but 150 ml-worth of rain over the Brecon Beacons hills is a lot of rain. But you know this. But, actually, the flooding impacts were not supporting—. So, this is really a team sport. So, we've got to get the weather forecast right, the flood models have got to show the impact, the responder community has got to work, and local communities have got to take action. So, that whole jigsaw puzzle has to work, to really make sure we're looking after the citizens of Wales.

Thank you. Julie.

Do you think that there is a risk of overcomplexity with the forecasting framework for Wales, bearing in mind that three different organisations may have different ways of communicating?

Do you want me to start with that?

Yes.

I'll come on to whether I think we've got some complexity. If you look at the role of the Met Office, that's worked for the last 170 years, and we continue to evolve. The FFC for England and Wales was set up following the 2007 floods. I think that's always been seen as a really strong partnership for England and Wales, working in partnership with NRW, the Environment Agency and the Met Office. It really should be held up as a world-leading partnership. And then, naturally, you'll have the responder community. I think, if you look back at storm Dennis, some of the things we've been working on is to make weather warnings less confusing, to make maps clearer. We've been working with broadcasters to do that.

Secondly, we're working with our flooding partners across the UK, including NRW, on a common warning framework, to, firstly, get to a standardised risk matrix, which will make it easier for the public to understand. So, we're looking at impacts, thresholds and likelihood, getting to a level of standardised language—and we absolutely need to look at the language around what action we need people to take. There's a very important role for social science within that because different cultures, and even regional cultures, will react in different ways. I talk to our European colleagues, and the way they message weather warnings will be slightly different to us, and similar to the US. So, there is definitely a social science and communication element to that.

And then, the third part of the common warning framework is absolutely to look at a common altering protocol, which is around standard dissemination of messaging. So, it can go on to radio, tv, social media channels, out through Amazon Alexa, adopting the latest technology. We use a European service called MeteoAlarm, which gets the warnings onto people's iPhones and Android phones. But that will also add some value, in terms of the common alerting protocol, to be able to help vulnerable people, visually impaired people, people who are deaf, people who have got cognitive impairments. So, we're constantly trying to advance the warning framework and the communication.

I think where we potentially do have some challenges, following our review of storm Bert—. Actually, in Wales, people look at the weather forecast less than in the rest of the UK, so, only about once a day. You can see in some of our responder feedback—. Actually, our responder feedback is that people are satisfied—it's at greater than 90 per cent—but, in Wales, that's slightly lower. So, there is something for us to look at, with the responder community, around how we can get that greater engagement.

The other bit I would point to is we do have a public weather customer group, and we have a Welsh seat on that. That's been inconsistent over the last few years. So, our independent chair will come out and meet representatives of Welsh Government and the responder community, but they've been less frequent than in other places, like Scotland and Northern Ireland. So, actually, if there's an ask of this committee, it would be getting more representatives from Wales on that public weather customer group, which is independent of us—it's independently chaired and it's run by our sponsoring department.

Okay. A brief intervention from Delyth then.

Diolch. I find that fascinating that people in Wales look at the weather less frequently, because I think of us as being obsessed with the weather. I just wanted to check: is that something that's true across different communities in Wales, or is there quite a variation? I can imagine, for example, that communities that have been hit time and again by flooding, are they much more likely than other communities in Wales to be looking more frequently at the weather?

So, I haven't got the local information, I only had at the high-level, helicopter view, but if we have the local information, we can provide that to the committee. That was done by our marketing team. I actually do find that stat surprising as well, but that's what our marketing team found. What I would say, in terms of flood warnings, people who sign up for flood warnings, actually, where we do see regional differences is people in affluent areas are more likely to sign up to flood warnings. People in deprived areas are less likely to sign up to flood warnings. And it's actually those in the most deprived areas is where, collectively, through the value chain, we all need to get better at.

Indeed.

How big is the gap, in terms of between Wales and England, for example, in looking at weather warnings?

So, it's less about the weather warnings; it's in terms of looking at the weather daily. So, I think Scotland was 88 per cent—I'll have to just check my numbers. Wales was around 51 per cent.

Fifty-one. Quite a big gap, then.

Yes.

That's very interesting. So, are you saying there's not overcomplexity? It sounded all very complex when you went through it, but you—

So, I don't think it is. If I look at the way we do weather warnings, it's impact based. We moved to being impact based in 2011; it used to be threshold based. So, threshold means that if there are 90 mph winds or 50 mph winds, 90 mph winds would be red, 50 mph might be a yellow wind warning. We work on impact based. So, we might not want one for a certain amount of rainfall overnight, because we know there are going to be fewer impacts on transport, roads, et cetera, but we might want one for that same type of weather system during the day. So, we are held up as a world-leading example of impact-based weather forecasting by our international partners, and I think you could say the same: people come and visit us from the Flood Forecasting Centre. I think we should be proud of the world-leading service we provide. But, likewise, there are always improvements you can make, and there are improvements definitely around the comms, how people take action, et cetera. You can only remain world leading if you strive for that continuous improvement.

Thank you. Do you have anything to add?

Yes, just to add, I accept it is complicated, but I'd say it is proportional to the risk we're facing. So, if we have a team set up to run 24/7 for 15 years, it does suggest there is a lot of risk that we're looking at. Whilst it is complicated, there are gaps. There is no surface water flood warning service in either England or Wales, and that accounts for the majority of risk to properties. So, there would have been no flood warning for surface water going out for south Wales at the moment; we're not at that point yet. So, it is complicated, but it's not completely comprehensive; there are gaps in that service provision. So, how would a lead local flood authority, with accountability for surface water, get that message out? So, that's going to add even more. So, I accept it's challenging, but it's not completely comprehensive at the moment.

Thank you. And then just one more question, really, for Simon: how has the role changed within the resilience landscape since you became a category 2 responder?

The honest answer to that is that it has not. It's probably strengthened our role and cemented it into law, but we're doing all the same things: we're interacting with local resilience forums and we've had our 22 civil contingency advisers across the UK. They're operating no differently. They were always working on training exercises, working with local resilience forums to prepare. And in severe weather, they're working at local level and briefing major incident teams, whether that's COBRA from the UK, whether that's the Wales civil contingencies committee, whether that's the Scottish Government equivalent. So, they are working in the same way. It's really more just cemented and strengthened, and ensured that was written in law.

Thank you.

Diolch yn fawr. Thank you. Joyce.

I'm going to ask the FFC whether you provide—because you've got different roles—any discrete flood risk information and databases to NRW, with a range of possible scenarios.

Yes. So, we run a range of national models. As I mentioned, Cardiff had the local models. So, we operate something called the grid-to-grid model, which covers all of England and Wales, and all the rivers, and we take the rainfall input for all scenarios, and run that through the national model for England and Wales, and we provide that to Cardiff, to NRW, and that helps then inform standing up the risk assessment, and running the local models when needed as well. So, most of what we provide is based on that output. Similarly, we take for the coastal side Met Office output for wave heights and storm surges as well.

So, all of that data goes into the NRW system, and we provide consultancy to support NRW, but also all category 1 and 2 responders in Wales. So, anybody can phone us 24/7, and I would encourage responders to do that. We also provide local flood advisory service calls at the local level as well, where civil contingencies advisers dial into those, and Natural Resources Wales as well. As Simon says, it's a team sport, and people are coming together to discuss flood risk in advance. So, the whole move to providing more lead time is to enable those discussions to happen, and that planning to take place, and it's only one part of it. So, the flood guidance statement that we issue every day is important, but it will never really capture the exact local, local detail that needs to be worked through at the LRF level, which is what then should be happening in advance of a key decision about when it's the best time to warn the public. And, clearly, if that's in daylight hours, that's much more advantageous than out of hours. So, the information we provide enables those earlier discussions to happen, really.

The bit that I would add on when stand-up is—. We do see variations in local resilience forums, when they stand up within the matrix. So, it's really understanding what the matrix is saying. And particularly where we've got medium and high-impact risk, we definitely see that, across the UK, different resilience forums will stand up, and there's a cost-loss decision to be made around resources, risk-based decisions. Go to Northern Ireland and they say, 'If it's a medium or high impact, we stand up our tactical co-ordination groups.' But other people will do things in different ways.

Right, that's interesting. So, following storm Bert, have you identified any ways in which either of you—your organisations, not you individually—could improve the handling of that prediction data?

So, there are three—. We're still reviewing storm Bert, and obviously we're now into the fifth named storm, so it's been a busy operational period. We've got three strands of work happening. So, one of the things we are reflecting internally on is our own internal decision making. We absolutely do align, particularly around rainfall events, with our partners and the flood models. The reason we do that is if you end up misaligning, and we are saying, 'It's an amber weather warning' and NRW are saying, 'There's no flood risk', that's really confusing for the public, and that's really confusing for the responder community. The question I've been asking is: are there times when we do need to misalign? This was 150 mm worth of rain—that was a lot of rain. So, we are going to do a review of our internal decision-making process to look at whether there are rare occasions when we might misalign with our partners. That obviously carries reputational risk, and it carries the risk around confusion.

The second thing we are doing is working with NRW to talk about what the lessons learnt are, and I'm actually with NRW at 2 o'clock today, and we started that conversation with the acting chief executive last week. That will follow lines such as what data can be provided and how the NRW flood models take that. It will cover things like nowcasting, so on the back of storm Bert, there was, I would say, a convective, and that's a heavy downburst of rain, of about 20 mm to 30 mm of rain, and that was quite tricky, spatially, to track down. You need good radar data to do that and you need to improve the modelling capability. So, there's work to be done in that area. And then the other part of that conversation with NRW is the radar coverage in Wales.

The third thing we are doing is looking at yellow weather warnings. People really act on ambers and reds, and we typically see about 30 to 40 amber weather warnings a year, and we have now seen our sixteenth red warning since impact-based forecasting warnings were introduced in 2011. We're going to really have a look at where we do have those medium and high-impact yellows, and what is it we can do to improve people taking the necessary action. And actually, one of the reasons we haven't kicked that piece of work off yet is that we're getting someone external in to review that, so we don't provide a conscious bias into our process.

Interesting. So, you did just mention about local authorities convening pre-emergency assessment teleconferences with local resilience forums for yellow weather warnings due to the number of them. You were talking about that now. So, how do you manage the risk of responders becoming desensitised, because that's another issue, potentially, by the frequency of weather warnings, or is that part of the work you're doing?

I think that is one part of the work we are doing. Secondly, we've got the civil contingency advisers; they've got local knowledge and they work really well with the local responder community. My general response to that is that this is a risk-based decision. When we are into medium-impact or high-impact yellows, for me, that is when the responder community should be really looking at, 'What is our risk here?' I can find the e-mail in a bit, but we were signalling on the Friday significant difficult local conditions for communities, and for me, when I read that language, it means, 'Okay, do we need to do something different?' North Wales did stand up a call involving all four local resilience forums, but there was no tactical co-ordination group set up until the Sunday, and at that point, the flooding was happening.

And we’re talking about local resilience forums following weather warnings. So, what avenues do you have to sustain communication with those local responders during the storm preparation phase?

So, during Bert, there were over 50 calls held by our civil contingency advisers, and as Russell’s already mentioned, they can pick up the phone and operate 24/7. We will attend the tactical co-ordination groups, we will attend the strategic co-ordination groups and we will attend meetings with Welsh Government.

If we talk about what happened during Bert, the initial warning was on the Wednesday, which was 20 November, with the weather event happening on the twenty-third to the twenty-fourth, so it was four days' lead time leading up to Bert. To give you some examples of the types of calls we had, we had a call with the head of Cardiff emergency division on the Wednesday, we were talking to Welsh Government on the Friday and we prepared a briefing note for the Deputy First Minister. We talked to NRW on the Thursday, and we attended the north Wales local resilience forum call on the Friday. So, there were multiple calls happening, and we attended all but one of the tactical co-ordination groups that were set up on the Sunday. And we have that team rostered on a 24/7 basis, so when we are in a severe weather event, they effectively surge; they work 24/7, assuming they can enough rest and sleep as well, and then, when we’ve got quieter periods of weather, we stand them down so that they can take some time off. So, we are fully able to provide that service into the responder community.

I’m assuming that you take different approaches communicating the risks according to whether they’re low likelihood, or high-impact events, compared with high likelihood, low-impact events. And both of those would be a yellow warning at the moment, if I’m right.

I think the approach depends on the structures and frameworks set out by local resilience forums, and what, then, the escalations are. So, if it then escalates into a Government-type awareness, again, we will respond. We generally fit into those structures and frameworks.

Mr Turner, anything?

Just to reflect, the risk matrix, while complicated, was progressed in Bert in terms of understanding at a local level. So, what I heard at the press conference on the Sunday was clearly around that we were prepared for a significant low likelihood event. That is a real step on from Dennis, when it was solely based on colour coding. So, there was that understanding there. So, it’s probably around the planning for those events, because one of the things with climate change is that it’s not only the extreme events that go up; it’s all the middle level that goes up as well. So, whilst we can make improvements to the risk matrix and the communication of it, we won’t take away all that uncertainty, in terms of whether to stand up or not. And that will still need to be a discussion and a decision that’s kind of worked through, and then looking at that is, ‘What is the tolerance for false alarms?’

So, we can improve the system, but we won’t remove all of the uncertainty in the system. It will be clearer to people, but there will still need to be a judgment about whether to stand up or not, and that’s down to what’s right for local communities, what’s right on the ground.

And I think it’s fair to say that there will be occasional false flags—there will be. In the pack today, there's the isle of Anglesey comment about a couple of missed events, and I think they had the snow events that have happened post Bert, and one last year, and we’re talking about a 10 or 20-mile difference on the snow. The rest of north Wales was impacted—schools were shut and it was the right call. But you’re just dealing with some of the spatial variations, and sometimes teams will stand up, and the impact just isn’t there. But we don’t issue weather warnings lightly; we don’t sit there pressing our button every day, issuing them. I’d rather we didn’t issue them. I’d rather we had benign weather, but unfortunately we don’t have benign weather in the UK and, as Russell said, more and more, this is going to happen with climate change.

So, how frustrating is it for you, then, if you issue a warning and you don’t see authorities stepping up in a way that you would perceive to be the proper reaction, or, as well, that you see an inconsistency between different areas in the ways that they respond to those warnings?

I think, our job at the Met Office is to provide the forecast and communicate it, and what I didn’t say earlier is that we don’t just do that through the local resilience forums, we do that through broadcasters. Our national severe weather warning goes to BBC and S4C, and we have a free public weather media service that goes to ITV, Sky and Channel 5. So, there are different ways to communicate. And I think, coming back to the team sports, that is a different way of playing the team sports—so, how the Met Office communicates working with broadcasters, how we communicate with the local resilience forums.

Clearly, we'd like more consistency, but what I would go back to is that we have knowledgeable civil contingency advisers who know the local teams and know the right messages to land, and actually, across the local responder communities across the UK, you do generally see a good response. Bert was definitely one where communities in Wales felt they needed better warning, and I think we all need to reflect on that.

Okay, thank you. Very, very briefly, then, because we are up against time.

I just wanted Russell to expand on the 'no surface water' warning facility for those most at risk. That is what really impacts on people, and it happens really, really quickly; you can go to bed and wake up and you're flooded, basically. So, what would you like to see in place or what could we do regarding that, or what should we be asking?

So, there is a trial at the moment. We're repeating that trial this summer. We're looking for permanent funding for that. But that's a service for emergency responders, and I think that will help, then, to develop the techniques and approaches to inform a surface water service. But that would then need something comparable to the flood warning service in terms of a lot of local knowledge, working with—. That knowledge isn't necessarily held by NRW, it's all with the lead local flood authorities. So, how is it going to nest into that? And then is that an ask on local authorities to do? So, that is a very challenging area, so I can't give you, 'This is what we need', but—

No, but there is a gap there.

There is a gap, yes.

At the moment, you get a warning from NRW to say that that river catchment is a flood-risk area, so you can sign up to alerts, but it's a huge area, so is that localised as well, so that communities know?

That might be a good enough proxy for surface water. I think I've reflected on—. The whole legal definition around 'river' and 'surface water' is not something you can work out in real time, and to be honest, the communities aren't really bothered about it in real time. So, I think we need to look at what the community need and then work back from that, because the legal definition isn't going to help us with that. So, I think we need to work that out and then have a broader warning that covers, maybe, the initial response to rivers and surface water systems as well.

Okay, thank you.

I think I'd build on that. With climate change, we're seeing more intense downbursts of rainfall. That's going to lead to more surface water flooding, and the reaction, often, to investment, whether it's flooding or weather, is when something happens, like the setting up of the Flood Forecasting Centre after the 2007 floods. We know that surface water is complicated and there are lots of people involved. But having one central team overseeing surface water, like the Flood Forecasting Centre or equivalent, would be very welcome.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you. Janet.

You told the House of Commons—and this is mainly for you, Russell—Welsh Affairs Committee that adding 20 per cent to the Met Office rainfall forecast for storm Bert did not result in an escalation to a more severe level of risk in your flooding models. Given the severity of flooding in places like the Taff and Ebbw valleys during storm Bert, do you think your models accurately reflected the reality of the situation, and if not, why? Is there a difference in the reliability of your hydrological models in steep, narrow water catchments such as the Taff, compared with broader catchments such as the Wye?

Okay. So, I think that's down to the quality of being able to put all of the rainfall forecast through the flood models. So, at the moment, going back, as I've explained, we currently put one rainfall forecast through and then test that. We should be putting 36 every 12 hours through, not one, and going with that. So, I think that's where we need to move to in terms of providing the best information, because then you can quantify the uncertainty and test it more, whereas in the lead-in to the event, by just taking one rainfall forecast, which was sort of ebbing or flowing around the threshold level, that didn't give enough confidence to escalate the risk there, which is why it stayed as low likelihood. It would have only moved to medium likelihood if we'd had more confidence in that, that there was more likelihood. But you'd have only got that if you'd have put all of the rainfall forecast through. So, I think, technically, there is no real technical argument why we wouldn't do that. There are cost and training and development arguments, but internationally everybody sees that that is the way flood forecasting needs to go.

I've only just realised this today, as I'm sure other Members, that there is this gap. So, how are these differences in uncertainty communicated to relevant stakeholders and also members of the community, because whenever there's a flood, people look to blame somebody? So, how do you communicate these differences in this uncertainty? How do you communicate that to relevant stakeholders, but, more importantly, the community? I have constituents who get terrified now when there's heavy rain, even if it's only for half an hour—they don't know. But how do you communicate that we've got this gap in Wales?

So, we communicate through the flood guidance statement and then the telephone conferences with the responders, and then it's through NRW and the local resilience forums to communicate with the public. And I think that that is quite a challenging area where there's a low likelihood or a medium likelihood of an event. Everybody wants that certainty, everybody wants it to be red. It won't always end up that way. So, that is a difficult area, but that discussion around it, saying, 'It may happen, so let's plan for the worst, but hope for the best.' I think that we can communicate that, and people understand that.

And have you had conversations with Welsh Government to really point out the inadequate system?

That's known from visits from Welsh Government down to the Flood Forecasting Centre. We do quite a lot of work with them and NRW, and, as Simon has mentioned, we're going there this afternoon to discuss with them how we start to close that gap. But that is invariably linked to—

And you feel you're being listened to.

Yes, yes.

Okay. Thank you. Carolyn—

But to reassure, just to finish off, on the flood-modelling side, the flood model performance is good in Wales, so it's worth investing in those. So, now they've done a lot of work on getting those flood models in place, the next part is to feed them with enough of the rainfall data that will inform the response.

Are those the ensemble models you—?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. So, what are the barriers to introducing ensemble models here, then, for flood forecasts?

So, partly it's moving a huge amount of data from various different organisations through the different systems—so, through the Met Office into NRW—and that we have sight of it as well. It may surprise you to know that I don't have oversight or any visibility of the local models in NRW. That is only at the local level that they see that. So, we need to work out, technically, how we do that from an IT systems point of view. And then, as I explained, we stepped up, so weather forecasting is 24/7, national flood forecasting is 24/7. Is it now time to consider what's right for local forecasting and the next part of the incident management chain? So, is a 24/7 control centre the next development of that? So, once you start putting more of this information in, that needs looking at, processing, decisions made and plans put in place. So, as risk has escalated and increased over time, we have stood up more and more of that chain.

Are you finding, with the change in weather, with the heavier rainfall, that there are more local variables as well?

Yes, definitely.

Which makes it harder to predict.

Flooding is a very localised problem. We have an awful lot of—

And snow as well.

—flood defence assets that need—. Whether somewhere floods or not can be down to an individual sluice gate, a structure, a weir. It's incredibly localised. So, yes, the difference between it happening or not is sometimes down to some very local situations.

And the land use as well. So, there are a lot of flood models in place and then land use is constantly changing. So, this isn't just about the rainfall—

Of course, it doesn't stand still.

—it's then about the land use, and then you've got to invest when the land use changes. So, it is partly complex—that question earlier.

Yes. In your written evidence, you say that you're working with flood agency partners to introduce a common warnings framework to reduce any confusion and ambiguity in warnings. So, what are these areas of confusion and ambiguity within the current warning framework? This is something that we keep coming back to with you, I think. It's just from our local point of view.

So, the matrix is described in different ways. The language around warnings—weather warnings and flood warnings—can be different, and the way that flood agencies and weather forecasting describe likelihood and risk can be different. So, the Met Office are leading a piece of work on both the standardisation of language, the standardisation of the risk matrix, as well as making sure that warnings can be disseminated using the common alerting protocol, which, by the way, is an international standard supported by a number of international organisations—the World Meteorological Organization, the Red Cross, and world broadcasting unions as well—and that will clearly help to disseminate messages better, going forward.

Just going back to your point around ensembles, and just about the models as well, it's how do you get the public to understand ensembles. And the way that we all understand that is probabilistic. So, if we use a betting analogy, we all understand what a chance of winning a rugby match at 2:1 is, and if it's a 20:1 chance, there's an outside chance of winning a sporting event. But 20:1 is still possible. So, when we see these extremes around rainfall and reasonable worst case, there is still a chance of that happening, and trying to get that communication out to the public in a really easy-to-explain way is going to be really important. One of the ways we are doing that is working particularly with broadcasters and getting them to help us explain the probabilistic forecasting, which we've now started to produce.

I think they like the drama of a red weather warning, or an orange one, don't they? You get that plastered everywhere. But, okay, thank you. Those are my questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay. Delyth.

Diolch. So, moving beyond what Carolyn was just talking about there, the changes that you are having to foresee making in terms of how your forecasts are broadcast, because of how the climate catastrophe, the emergency that we're in, the pace of it is changing—you've been acknowledging this throughout the session—much more quickly than people have anticipated, possibly, and that makes predicting how quickly it will speed up in the future difficult as well. Could you talk us through, in terms of the models that you use—the metrological models, the hydrological models—how you are continuing to adapt those, to make sure that they will keep capturing real-world conditions accurately, even though we don't know how bad it's going to get?

I will do my best. I'm not a scientist. My scientists are watching to make sure I can explain this really clearly.

We're all cheering you on, you're okay.

Thank you. So, from a weather-modelling perspective, we take the real-time observations that we gather from the observations we've got across the UK, but also globally, bearing in mind we are running both global and regional models, and the regional models run down to 1.5 km grid squares. So, we take that observations data, and based on the physical processes we understand on the atmosphere—we’re doing a lot of research around atmospheric science—that then generates the weather forecasts. And going back to the ensemble question earlier, the reason we get ensembles is we just slightly change the initial starting conditions, which gives us the ensemble-based forecasts, because the globe is complex. It’s a spinning sphere of hot gas—that’s kind of the simplest way to explain it.

We constantly validate those models, based on what we’ve observed, and that gets fed back for our scientists to be able to update those models, and that, in part, answers part of your question around how do we make sure we're on top of climate change. The globe is warming up. For every 1 degree increase in temperatures, we’re seeing 7 per cent more atmosphere. But because of the way the laws of physics work, we’re able to keep updating the models to keep in line with climate change.

Just to give you a couple of good examples—probably three good examples: two big extreme events that have happened in Europe recently, in Germany in 2021 and Valencia last year, our models were able to pick up the high-intensity rainfalls, and our next model upgrade, particularly for the Valencia event, improved the ability to pick up extreme rainfall, and we saw 40 degrees in the UK for the first time in July 2022. Some of the global models were picking that up two weeks in advance; we were picking that up 10 days in advance. So, the 40 degrees is a good example of something never seen in the UK before, and it broke the UK temperature record by 1.5 degrees, and we were able to pick that up. So, we have a team of dedicated world-leading scientists who are constantly updating our models and keeping on top of the latest changes.

What I would say, relevant to Wales, is that it's important to maintain our investment in the observations capability in Wales, because that enables us to get more and more accurate, and more and more precise, around our modelling predictions, whether that’s rainfall gauges, radars, or other observations equipment. So, there’s a continual need to invest in observations data. Observations data is becoming even more important, particularly with artificial intelligence models.

Thank you for that. Presumably, because, as you say, some of those very extreme weather events, like what happened in Valencia last year, were so intense, allowing communities to be able to plan far enough in advance, that is what makes all the difference with something like that. So, that's incredibly useful. And I'm not a scientist, but you explained that in a way that was very understandable. So, thank you very much indeed for that.

Finally, from me: Simon, in your written evidence, you highlight the increasing rainfall frequency and intensity in the coming decades, as you've just been talking about. Now, evidently, you've got a resilience role in terms of those storms, in those extreme weather events that you’ve been talking about. In terms of contributing to long-term climate mitigation and planning on a local level, on a national level, do you see a role for yourselves in that as well, not just in terms of forecasting what will happen, but advising about how adaptations need to work as a result?

We've talked a lot about the weather today, but a very important role we play is that climate advice and that scientific integrity into Government, industry and out to citizens. Our chief scientist, Stephen Belcher, could definitely do a much wider brief around climate, if the committee did want that, at a future point.

As I said, at the start, in my introduction, we've got the Hadley climate centre, which provides advice into UK Government around climate change and variability. At a national level, we've got the UK climate projections, which go down to 2.2 km sq, so you can go in and look at the impact of climate change in your local area. We have users who feed into that group and give us feedback of how useful that is. We have representatives from the Welsh Government who are users and help us improve the use of that UKCP projection, and they were, ultimately, on the project board, as part of the UK Government initiative. We've recently introduced a local authority climate service portal. So, people can go in and look at their local climate information, which allows them to make the right decisions around climate adaptation and decision making. And we're also one of the lead producers of the fourth UK climate change risk assessment report, which is really setting out the risks that the UK faces from climate change and will help inform adaptation plans, again, across the UK and for devolved Governments.

The other things we are doing in climate: we've been supporting Welsh Government in Climate Action Week, particularly around misinformation. Welsh Government have been in to film in our headquarters, talking to our climate scientists. And, slightly different from climate, but all our weather readiness is in the Welsh language as well. So, we're doing lots in the climate space. I think, to answer you on adaptation, we can support adaptation, but our main role is about the scientific advice and providing the latest scientific advice for policy makers.

Okay. We've got two to three minutes left. Delyth, you can come back, and then Julie wants to come in, and then we'll draw it to a conclusion. Delyth.

Okay. Forgive me if this is an unfair question to be asking you. I was really interested in what you were saying earlier about how the communities that are—I don't like the word 'deprived', but where the highest levels of deprivation are, they are less likely to be, for example, looking up what the weather is going to be, and things like that. And, as we know, there are lots of those areas that are going to be particularly badly affected by flooding, by coal tip slips, by poor infrastructure in their areas. Is there anything that you feel that the Welsh Government should and could be doing, or other bodies should and could be doing, to try and bridge that gap to further empower those communities, so that they will feel more empowered and they've got more agency to be doing things like looking up the weather, so that it isn't something that is just happening to them, that they have more of a stake in this, just to empower those people more? Again, forgive me if this is an unfair question to be asking you.

You've probably answered your own question. There is always more we can do. Climate change is happening. There's going to be more extreme weather. Getting that whole chain working from weather forecast, flood warnings, local resilience forums to the action communities can take, being really clear what action is required from communities, is going to be really important. More self-help—if you look at the national resilience strategy in the UK, that talks about society helping itself. So, there is definitely more we can do. We don't just do weather forecasting, we do lots of comms, we do lots of weather readiness campaigns, we provide lots of information around climate, but that's why we exist. Our job is to do that and we will need to continue to get better as climate change really starts to bite, and it's already biting.

Thank you.

Thank you. Last word to Julie.

It's been good to hear you talk about your team of world-leading scientists and the fact that people look to the UK for what we're actually doing. Is there any other country that we have got something to learn from in terms of this whole area?

That's also a good question. Lots of countries do this well. We are held up particularly around our on impact-based forecasting by our international partners. We work as part of about 190 countries through the World Meteorological Organization and there’s constant sharing of best practice. I can take that away, around whether there’s any particular—

It'd just be interesting, because it's good to hear that people come to see what we're doing, but if there is somewhere else that is doing something that we would need to do—. But, really, this is a world-wide issue, isn't it?

Yes. I think my response is that we're constantly learning from each other; we’re constantly holding bilaterals with other countries. We get a lot of visits at the Met Office, and so does the Flood Forecasting Centre, and they generally want to come and see what the Met Office and Flood Forecasting Centre are doing. But we’re not proud, we will take best practice from other countries and we will steal that and plagiarise it, because if it works for them it will work for us, notwithstanding there could be cultural differences in why certain things don’t work.

Excellent. Russell.

Can I ask a question for information?

Yes. Russell first and then—.

Yes, just to build on that, over 200 countries are forecasting a warning service, and 40 of those have exactly the same software as Wales. So, there is a lot to draw on there. There is a lot of experience from different European nations, but also, increasingly, countries looking to set up brand-new services, particularly in south-east Asia. And they won’t have the legacy challenges we’ve got of transforming our service to that—they can put in a completely new service. So, they’re starting from scratch, but they will get ahead very, very quickly. So, some of the newer developments are actually in some of those new areas as well. But, yes, there are international standards for this work. If we can streamline and adopt those, we’ll probably get there more quickly.

I think the other bit just to add is the shared experience around the UK as well and being able to share post-event experience and learning from events, rather than solely within each nation, and that is an area the new floods taskforce is looking at as well—it’s how do nations learn from each other and share experience around the LRF level as well.

Thank you. Joyce, then.

Just to the Flood Forecasting Centre, you highlighted surface water flooding. I’ve been talking about that for 18 years, but what I’m keen to understand is your role in planning, because quite clearly the urban creep is causing big problems, but also your understanding of the extraction of surface water through the new planning systems in Wales that apparently, I’ve been told yesterday, are the best in the UK. But good is maybe not good enough. So, I don’t expect an answer now, but I’m very interested in that hydrological forecasting, which you can understand from my interest, and how you pull all that together in a meaningful way to inform localities that are probably about to put themselves at risk.

Yes. So, briefly, we take the latest modelled surface water risk maps, which look at the risk over the next 30 years, and we’re looking at running that—. I said there are 200 flood models in Wales. That’s for rivers and the coast; there’s no real-time surface water flood model anywhere. So, we’re trialling that this summer and trying to develop that. So, we will take the surface water risk area and apply that, and we’d update that every few years as well. So, we wouldn’t look at individual developments, obviously, but we would be able to look at what’s at risk—the rates of rainfall that could cause flooding issues against those sorts of design standards and develop a service based on that, depending on what NRW and the EA want to do with surface water as a public service. So, that’s back to the gap that is quite a big one to fill.

And just one very quick final one: in that, would you look at soil types?

Yes.

Because, if you looked at Hampshire, it's nearly all chalk, so it's going to go underground. If you look at Wales, where it's clay, it's going to end up in your backyard.

Yes. So, the models take soil moisture into account and soil type into account and the permeability of it, yes.

Thank you.

Well, excellent. Can I thank you both so much for your attendance? It’s been informative, it’s been enlightening, and it’s been great evidence for us to give us that understanding of the services that you provide, and obviously that’ll hold us in good stead as we speak to others—local authorities, NRW, Dŵr Cymru et cetera, et cetera—in the course of this inquiry. So, thank you so much. You’ll be sent a copy of the draft transcript just to check for accuracy. But, with that, can I thank you both? Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you.

The committee will now break for literally five minutes, and we’ll be starting again with local authorities at 12.15 p.m. Diolch yn fawr.

Welcome back to committee. We're going to have our final evidence session now, with representatives from local authorities, as we hold our inquiry into storm response. Joining us, we have Councillor Andrew Morgan, the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association. Also, we have Andrew Stone, who is the service director, highways and engineering with Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council. And joining us virtually, we have Huw Percy, who's the head of highways, property and waste services with the Isle of Anglesey County Council. So, I'll just start with a general question, but I don't want to spend too much time on this: in the context of Rhondda Cynon Taf and Ynys Môn, perhaps you could just tell us briefly about the main impacts of storms Bert and Darragh in your areas. Perhaps we can start with Andrew.

Okay. Thank you. So, the main impact, I think, certainly in the upper catchments, was in terms of run-off. If you look at the figures of both our own rain gauges and NRW rain gauges, we saw that close to seven inches of rain fell in the upper catchments. That's considerably more, and, in fact, almost double what fell, if you imagine, in the Pontypridd area south. So, while river flooding, in particular, hit Pontypridd, that was mainly through water coming off the hills up at the top of the Valleys.

In terms of the figures, that broke storm Dennis records. And in terms of river levels, while Pontypridd didn't exceed storm Dennis, river gauges from NRW at three locations in the Valleys did. So, we saw considerable flooding—over 400 properties, over 100 of them commercial. Some of those properties had been flooded for the second or third time. Some got flooded twice during storm Dennis, over that period, and storm Ciara; similar when we had storm Christoph, a year later. So, the impact on some of those families has been quite profound, because some of the families affected, unfortunately, don't have insurance, and it's affected their well-being and mental health.

And then just to say, in terms of infrastructure, we're currently estimating around £8 million-worth of direct infrastructure damage, but, in addition to that, a £5 million bill to replace a bridge at Abercynon, which has been completely washed away. It was washed away and badly—. Well, it was considerably damaged during storm Dennis. We were in the final stages of putting the new bridge in, where the existing old piers—. The bridge has been there over 100 years. There was some scaffold on there. We were due to complete the work by the end of February now. And, in storm Bert, the entire structure, including the piers, has been swept away. So that now leaves us with just a gap where there should be a bridge. And we estimate the cost of this new bridge, which will probably have to span the complete river, without piers, will cost in excess of £5 million. So, I've written to Welsh Government to make them aware. Our overall costs, we are suggesting, for Bert alone, is around £13 million-worth of infrastructure impact.

Okay. Diolch yn fawr. That's a good snapshot, really, isn't it, of the seriousness of the situation.

And what about the situation in Ynys Môn?

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. In terms of storm Bert, very small effects in Ynys Môn—no considerable damage, just a few events, the closing of a few roads because of trees and floods only. No flooding to houses or significant asset damage. In terms of storm Darragh, no rain impacts, but impacts of strong winds, but they were temporary mainly, with a number of roads closed for a number of days, a lot of electrical equipment down, and properties lost electricity. And, in addition, we had to close Britannia bridge for a period. And you'll be aware that Holyhead port was closed for a month, and, even after it reopened, only one of the usual sailing berths is operational currently.

In terms of impacts on the community, the biggest impact was the loss of electricity and road closures during the storm period. And aside from the damage to the port, there isn't any great damage to assets to the same extent as reported in Rhondda Cynon Taf.

And that reminds us that it isn't just water that's the problem in this context, of course.

Can I—

Very, very briefly, then, because we are up against time today.

Yes. You quoted some big figures there for local authorities, and I know that flooding causes issues with infrastructure: it breaks up roads and culverts. There is an emergency financial assistance fund for local authorities that they can bid for, but it's got to be for anything over £500,000, I think, which is sometimes an issue, isn't it, when putting in bids for those, to get money back, after issues.

Just to be clear: so, we've triggered the emergency financial assistance scheme.

You have, yes.

We have, yes. There isn't actually a fixed financial figure: it's a percentage of your budget. So, for example, for Rhondda Cynon Taf, we have to fund the first £1.2 million, and then, anything over £1.2 million, we get 85 per cent support for. However, that is only—. And, actually, it's until 28 February, next week, because of the end of the financial year. And also things like a bridge at £5 million that's been swept away—that would be outside it. So, this is only for the immediate clean-up and any emergency works. Any further works needed don't come under the emergency financial assistance scheme.

I know, during these storms, in some local authorities, there were landslips as well, and so that costs money to clear up, and it doesn't trigger that funding but there are costs to the local authorities. So, that's—. I was just raising that, then, as well.

We had three landslips.

Yes. Okay.

Thank you. Joyce.

Good morning and welcome again. So, what procedures do you have in place for handling different tiers of alerts and warnings from forecasting bodies? For example, how does the process of dealing with, say, a yellow weather warning compare to an amber or a red warning?

Okay. So, within Rhondda Cynon Taf, after storm Dennis and the lessons from that, we set up a full protocol system within the borough. So, you heard previously from the Met Office and the flood guidance, so all that information was taken in. So, at the moment, we've got a yellow, amber and an amber-plus protocol, which, effectively, is edging towards red. Each one of those tiers will stand up certain amounts of resources. The yellow warnings will stand up our control centre, or remote control centre, which will be watching all our telemetry, which we may go into later. The depots will stand up a certain amount of resources within a winter period—that's up to 20 individuals plus machines. For an amber plus, then, it will go higher. So, effectively, the information that we receive then will go to those alerts. So, we've got all those presets all ready to go.

And—

Can we just check with Anglesey? Is it a similar set-up in your area as well?

Thank you for the opportunity. Yes, there are internal arrangements: when there is an amber alert, the corporate management team does meet, and also services continue with their arrangements in accordance with what day of the week it is, whether that's closing schools, leisure centres and so on. But, of course, above that, there are regional arrangements that exist, and when an alert reaches a threshold to become an amber one, North Wales Police, in general, tend to arrange a TCG meeting or a police emergency event team meeting in order to co-ordinate the regional response across a number of agencies. Thank you.

I assume you're talking about the local resilience forums coming into play there. But what I'm also keen to understand, in light of what we've just been talking about, is if you prepare differently or the same if it's heavy rainfall or high wind.

So, our protocol: as Andrew's explained, we'd have 20 operatives on call, plus inspectors, plus engineers, and then we'd have JCBs and other contractors for a yellow, and then an amber is considerably more. And because we had an amber for storm Bert, for example, we put a huge amount of resource in, probably in excess of 50 or 60 operatives on the ground, JCBs and kit et cetera.

For storm Darragh, because there was an amber warning and potentially, you know, we were advised on a call that the Met Office and NRW did have concerns for river flooding—although it didn't materialise like in storm Bert—we basically went to a full scale of probably—. Well, I've said this publicly, it was the most resources that we've ever put in place. We basically asked every available contractor to deploy resources. So, we probably, for storm Darragh, had over 100 staff and contractors available.

But one of the things we are looking at is reviewing our lessons learnt on the back of storm Bert. Because storm Bert was only a yellow, we took a decision. We met a couple of days before, both at a senior leadership team level, and then we convened an operational meeting, which I also attended. We stepped up resources because we thought it was going to be bad, however one of the things now that we are looking at is having our own mechanism, slightly different to using the yellow and amber that the Met Office does. And that's because, as I've just discussed with colleagues from the Met Office, 60 mm to 80 mm of rain in a short period of time, say, south of Pontypridd doesn't cause us major issues. You get that level of rainfall in the hills in the upper Cynon and the upper Rhondda, and what we are finding more and more—and a lot of our flooding, our telemetry and our cameras have shown—is that debris is getting washed off the mountain. You know, we finished a brand-new culvert—funded by the Welsh Government, thankfully—a week before storm Bert; we've got closed-circuit television images where it's monitored from our control room, it is completely brand-new—a big concrete chamber like this—it's totally clear, it's flowing, and within half an hour, it is absolutely buried under 50 tonnes of material. And then an hour later, it shows a JCB—because our control room has picked it up—there clearing the culvert. But we are now reviewing, to think that we may have to step up resources a lot more at a lower level going forward.

We discussed last time you were here issues about going on to that land to clear. Is that an issue, or do landowners know their responsibility to keep the culverts clear?

In terms of our own culverts, we have telemetry, obviously, we have pre-inspection regimes. During the events, we'll have people monitoring the cameras, people going around the culverts. One of our big issues—. And we've had, certainly, in one of our locations, a private culvert on private land blocked and caused considerable flooding to a number of properties. We had to send resources there, JCBs et cetera, to get the culvert cleared. The community immediately thinks it's our responsibility and they've been flooded because we have been negligent in not looking after a culvert, and actually it's on private land. And sometimes, when you tell private landowners under a paid ownership, 'You are legally responsible', it comes as a shock to them.

So, does more—?

Sorry. Can I just ask, to what extent—? What does this tell us about the type of infrastructure that we're putting in, then? If Government have just paid for that, clearly it was inadequate in response to this particular storm. Are we not futureproofing sufficiently, then, in terms of the infrastructure we're putting in?

So, on this one in particular, there was a small landslide on the mountain and the landslide—. In effect, you had a small ravine where quite a big stream comes down; there was a landslide in there and that material got mobilised. But one of the things we've taken the decision on since storm Bert—and we've done a lot of debris basins ahead of culverts—so where you have a main culvert screen, if there's land available, we've built a debris basin. So, in effect, anything like branches, rubble et cetera collects in the debris basin and then it should be relatively clean water, without debris in it, that only comes to the culvert. So, we've done that on lots of schemes in the past, but we've taken the decision now that every scheme going forward, where there is the availability of land to do it, we will do it, and if it's not covered by the Welsh Government funding, we will fund it as a council in addition to the scheme the Welsh Government funds.

Okay. All right. Thank you. And on Anglesey?

Yn amlwg, dŷn ni'n sôn am rybudd gwynt, ac mae rhybudd glaw efallai yn berthnasol hefyd. Mae rhybuddion efallai yn amharu ar ardaloedd arfordirol. Os ydy o'n rhybudd gwynt, mae rhybuddion yn mynd allan i sicrhau bod contractwyr a phawb yn clirio arwyddion, hynny ag y gallan nhw; dŷn ni'n trefnu generators i gartrefi gofal lle mae yna ffyrdd sydd â risg o gael eu cau yn hanesyddol. Ac fel yr oedd y Cynghorydd Andrew Morgan yn sôn ar gyfer rhybudd glaw, dŷn ni'n gweld faint o sachau tywod sydd gennym ni a cheisio clirio culverts o flaen llaw.

Sorry, Huw. There's just a little problem with the interpretation here. We'll get a set that's working now. Okay, sorry. Yes, carry on.

Iawn. Ar gyfer rhybudd glaw, fel roedd y Cynghorydd Andrew Morgan yn cyfeirio ato fo, mae gwaith i glirio'r culverts o flaen llaw. Ond buaswn i yn tynnu sylw at yr her o gadw'r rheini'n glir drwy'r nos yn ystod storm. Maen nhw'n aml mewn lleoliadau anodd i gael atyn nhw, ac mae awdurdodau'n ceisio manteisio ar grantiau Llywodraeth Cymru i wella dulliau o gael atyn nhw, a'u gwneud nhw'n olau, i sicrhau bod ein gweithlu ni'n gallu gwneud hynny'n ddiogel. Ond mae rhai o'r screens yma o flaen culverts yn llenwi efo brigau bob 20 munud, felly mae hi'n dipyn o waith eu cadw nhw'n glir.

Ar gyfer unrhyw stormydd arfordirol, wrth gwrs, mae yna rybuddion yn mynd i'r cyhoedd i gadw'n glir o'r arfordir a pheidio â rhoi eu hunain mewn unrhyw beryglon. Ac yn debyg i drefniadau Rhondda Cynon Taf, ar gyfer unrhyw storm, mae yna waith yn cael ei wneud yn paratoi adnoddau, gweld pa staff sydd ar gael. Mae yna aelodau o staff ar rota i fynd allan i ddelio gyda stormydd, ond mae yna gyfnodau lle dŷn ni yn dibynnu ar ewyllys da ac argaeledd staff a chontractwyr i'n cynorthwyo ni. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Okay. Finally from me, what criteria do you use to escalate or de-escalate the level of tactical co-ordination response during the storm event?

So, during both storms—

A storm.

A storm. Okay. So, we use the civil contingency model, the LRF-type model, where we always work from the lowest point, so that's the operational, the tactical, up to strategic. In terms of the way that the tactical group will look at it would be that, as long as there are decisions still to be made during that incident, then the tactical group will stay. If those decisions start to turn to more recovery, then the group will then decide, as a group, to move to a recovery group. That recovery group then is usually—usually—led by the local authority, and in storm Bert there was a full recovery group convened for Rhondda Cynon Taf, and that went straight into recovery mode, literally, I think, the next day.

Okay. North Wales.

The arrangements are similar in Anglesey. I would note that, for storm Darragh, the situation on Anglesey and in Gwynedd was similar, and therefore the regional group dealt with the events in terms of setting up the strategic group and the tactical group. In terms of the de-escalation and setting out that warning, the main threshold at that time was the number of roads that were closed because of fallen trees, and specifically the number of vulnerable individuals who were on the lists of energy companies that didn't have electricity to their homes, and therefore still needed support. For storm Darragh, some individuals who were in the tactical group kept meeting to deal solely with the effect of the storm on Holyhead port, and the significant risk that was there with hundreds of lorries reaching the port without any boat to take them away from there, and the problems that then happened in the town with parking and with other facilities for those drivers.

Diolch yn fawr. Can I ask, then? Obviously, we've heard from the Met Office and the Flood Forecasting Centre. Do you feel that there were any gaps or shortcomings in the warnings that you received during storm Bert and storm Darragh, and if there were, how did that impact your response? But also, what conversations have you had after that to try and remedy some of those shortcomings, if there were some?

I'm happy to go first. You won't be surprised, I was publicly critical of both agencies in the immediate aftermath. And, in fairness, senior officers from the Met Office came down to meet me within days, as did the chief exec or the acting chief exec and others from NRW. We've had a robust conversation on some of the information with the Met Office, in fairness. I think they've reflected on it, and I'm grateful for the way that they've responded. I gave them examples of inconsistencies. So, between warnings, for example, Darragh and Bert, very different warnings, which allowed both us, but, in particular, the public, to be ready for what was coming. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad, actually, in terms of flooding to what was forecast. However, for storm Bert, I think I'm right in saying, and they've certainly said through the LRF, that, with hindsight, it should have been an amber weather warning because of the amount of rain. As I say, seven inches of rain falling, that is not a yellow warning. If we had thought seven inches of rain was going to fall in our area, we would have rung the alarm bells.

But also, just to be clear—and I did raise this in a meeting with the Met Office—local authorities get daily updates. When there is a storm coming, we get daily updates. Those daily updates are not made public, only the—. There's a public-facing update, and there's a daily update. The public update, and the daily update to local authorities was clearly inconsistent, because the public update was saying that it could be 100 mm to 150 mm of rain, yet on the Thursday, the update that we had as a local authority for our area said it was 80 mm to 100 mm. On the Friday, they increased it—I believe it was in the 90 mm to 100 mm range, and on the Saturday, the day before the storm hit, there was no update. So, I laid all this out in the meeting, with facts and figures. I also went back over about five years, showing where we'd had previous warnings for the amount of rain, the millimetres of rain. And in fairness to them, they couldn't answer on the day, but they said, 'Look, there does appear to be some inconsistencies.' And I get it as well; they explained their side about how difficult it is to be exact on the areas.

So, I think we've got a better understanding now from both sides, and I understand, from the conversations with the Met Office—and, again, they're coming to see me next week—that they are reflecting on, if there was a storm Bert event again, what they would do differently. So, from that side, it's positive, I think.

In terms of storm Bert and NRW, I did raise concerns about the fact that river gauges were rocketing in the early hours. I was in touch with my senior officer, who attended the committee meeting with me last week, Steve; we were in touch throughout the night. During the early hours, probably about five o'clock, I myself at home was looking at all the NRW gauges and the Met Office live radar, and I made contact with senior officers at about 4.40 in the morning, to say, 'I think this is going to turn into a storm Dennis.' When they contacted NRW at about 6.30 that morning, we had a reply, and the message was, 'You can tell your leader this is no storm Dennis.' Well, subsequently, it was a storm Dennis, practically. And in fairness, on some of the figures and some of the data we've gone back and fore with—again, we've had constructive conversations in the last few weeks.

Now, that represents a serious failure in the systems that are supposed to protect people, clearly. You mentioned that there's a new way of approaching this going forward. Are you confident, therefore, that we won't see a repeat of those kinds of situations?

In terms of the flooding, obviously unless there's intervention in flood prevention measures, mitigation measures, that is something separate. But in terms of the warning system, I'm more confident now, at least, that warnings will be issued earlier. And as I said, they have been able to demonstrate, NRW, to show that, actually, the river levels rose—I think I'm right in saying—something like 300 mm. So, it rose around 1 ft every 15 minutes, which, compared to previous data, was a bit of a record—how fast it was rising. So, by the time the data from their control room went through the mechanism, and I understand it's manually done, it's not done automatically—. So, because of the manual intervention, reviewing the river level, reviewing the current weather, and what is going to happen—'Is the rain going to stop in the next 10 minutes or is it going to rain for another hour?'—by the time that went through the system and the button was pressed, the water was already in the streets. And I think we're having positive conversations with NRW about how we review this, so we are keen to work with them.

Thank you very much. What's the experience of Ynys Môn in terms of getting such warnings and responding to them?

In terms of storm Bert, that wasn't a significant storm on Anglesey in terms of the weather warnings. For storm Darragh, I have to praise the weather warnings we received for that storm. They were wind warnings, but they were very accurate in terms of the strength and the direction of the wind, which was different from usual storms, and also the timing. That did help us in considering when it was safe to send staff and the workforce out to deal with events and in managing our response.

In terms of regional meetings, I am aware that there were concerns during storm Darragh about the risk of rain in the eastern counties, more in Denbighshire, and there was flooding from the rain there, and there were concerns expressed in the regional meetings about those warnings. But in terms of Anglesey, the warnings for wind were very good, and they helped us to manage the event and to respond better.

Okay, thank you very much. Could I just remind Members? I am aware that there are a lot of important things to discuss. But we only have half an hour left and there are many areas that we're keen to focus on, so I'll have to ask Members to focus on the most important issues, perhaps. So, we'll go to Janet next.

Thank you. Anglesey and Carmarthenshire county councils have suggested that the priority customer register, the PCR, which is maintained by utility companies to identify vulnerable customers, has not been properly maintained. How did you use the PCR during the recent storms, and what issues, if any, did you experience when using the PCR?

Maybe we'll start with Ynys Môn, given that they raised this.

During storm Darragh, by Sunday it was clear that there were a number of vulnerable individuals without electricity and that they'd been without electricity for quite a long time. And having got in touch with those individuals, what became clear was that the data that was held by local authorities and the data that was held by the electricity companies about these individuals—. There were inconsistencies between the two lists, and when the lists were compared with each other, the format of the information didn't facilitate working from one list to another. That's why, therefore, we would welcome work between electricity providers and councils on their vulnerable individual lists, and perhaps including health services, to have one comprehensive list so that we could reach these vulnerable individuals as soon as possible to assist them, noting as well, during the storm, that a number of them didn't have a phone connection and we couldn't ring them to see how they were, and we were therefore reliant on a number of social workers on foot knocking on doors.

Thank you, and just before Andrew comes in on that one, we had exactly the same thing during the recent water—. The health board had different vulnerable people on a list. The police had—. The local authorities had different—. It's chaotic. Thank you.

And I presume your experience was pretty similar, was it?

In terms of storm Bert, the lists weren't used, certainly from a tactical perspective. As I said earlier, the speed at which storm Bert came on, and then we went into recovery mode, really had our colleagues in social services and other departments out there very, very quickly. In terms of the storm and the incident, it was over very quickly. Obviously, the legacies carry on, but it was over very quickly.

In terms of storm Darragh, we didn't have as much impact as Anglesey. We did have some power cuts. We did have some at care homes. But again, that was addressed at a tactical level and with local information. So, from an RCT perspective, we didn't see any inconsistencies because we didn't really need to use them.

Okay, but clearly there are lessons to be learned from experiences elsewhere. Okay. Diolch yn fawr. Right, Julie.

Good morning. How does the Welsh Government's flood response framework inform your approach in your resilience planning?

Who wants to start? Andrew.

To a certain extent, it is a little bit out of date. I haven't got my dates head on, but I think it was about 2016, something like that.

That's correct. I was going to ask you about that.

Well done. You've passed the test.

Thank you very much. So, from our experiences of storm Dennis, I suppose you could say that we've taken a blank piece of paper and we've written our own. We're always learning lessons, there's always a 'Can do better.' As the leader mentioned earlier, we are adjusting our processes, even after storm Bert, with regard to other agencies, other notifications.

So, in terms of the Welsh Government framework, I suppose that we give consideration to it but we've stepped away from it slightly because we do have quite a unique topography, response. We've got three valleys, for instance, therefore, if all of our resources are in one valley, to get them into the next valley is very difficult and very challenging. So, it's really coming back to this intelligence-led response, which comes back then to the warnings and the information coming through. If we have that intelligence coming through to our tactical groups, we can get our resources in the right place at the right time, which is why we've set up our own monitoring system, our own camera system, so that we can instantly react for local sources of flood risk.

Yes, and just to say on that, in terms of the warning—. For example, and it is very different, the warnings that we had for storm Darragh were excellent. Both agencies performed really well in advance and that allowed us to put resources actually out in communities. So, where we'd have the depots open in an amber, for example, because we were concerned about the level of impact and the potential—because they did actually use the phrase, 'This could be a storm Dennis event in terms of the amount of rain for RCT'—we actually put out JCBs, resources and crews dotted strategically throughout the county, not just at our depots. So, they were ready and we had JCBs—I think we had six or seven JCBs, we had various other machinery—

Eight.

Eight. So, we had them dotted around with crews, so that if a culvert in the Pontypridd, Rhydyfelin, Cilfynydd area was picked up on the camera, we had a machine that basically covered those 20 culverts within a 5-mile radius. So, we had resources available like that.

And in terms of the planning, I suppose, as Andrew said, it is about understanding the different impacts in different areas, because in the south of the county, the vast majority of flooding is from rivers. That is our biggest risk. So, sandbagging properties, in some cases helping with flood gates in advance, et cetera, whereas in the upper catchment, in particular, in the Rhondda and Cynon, that is about debris coming off the mountains and blocking ordinary watercourses.

So, you've got your unique situation, basically.

Yes, but if we had an amber warning tonight, our emergency control room would be fully manned. It's got a bank of cameras; it's like a CCTV control centre. It's got links to the two depots, with a bat phone, effectively, you pick up the phone and you go straight through to the depot. You haven't got to worry about getting through with lines. It's got base telemetry, we've got big touchscreens where we can monitor our NRW river gauges. So, we can have staff in there from flood risk management and operational staff. That's alongside our 24-hour telephone centre. It's got back-up generators. So, for example, during storm Darragh, our main office at Tŷ Elai in the Rhondda and all that community lost power for a period of time, but the building runs on back-up generators, so that we are really quite resilient. We've got three types of Wi-Fi in the building, so if any one particular provider goes down, we've got back-up systems for Wi-Fi. So, the building is actually really well kitted out, and that was on the back of storm Dennis.

Can I come back, please? So, for instance, we've just had a yellow warning for Sunday for rain while I was waiting to come in. I logged on to your Wi-Fi, checked all of the cameras live, sent out some instructions with regard to our protocol. So, all our operational teams now are all active in accordance with our protocol. So, I can check the cameras live on my laptop; you can do it on the phone as well, but it's very small.

What about your links, your interaction with the local resilience forum partners, before and after extreme weather events? Can you describe that? I'll come back up to Anglesey afterwards.

Okay. So, what we've discussed so far is Rhondda Cynon Taf's tactical group. So, depending on the extent of the incident, the LRF will call a multi-agency approach. Our lead in the tactical group will then step up to the regional. That will provide any sort of regional help, whether it be the number of sandbags, whether it be personnel. Certainly in storm Dennis, we had vehicles coming down from Flintshire because we put a call out. We had officers coming in from the Vale because we put the call out. So, certainly, the interaction at the regional level where it’s required is very good. We do very much stick to our protocols within our tactical groups because of the way that we’ve designed our procedures in terms of the events.

Could I just say, in storm Darragh, we did ask for mutual assistance via Welsh Government as well, because we’d given out over 8,000 sandbags during storm Bert? Storm Darragh was so quick behind that, we hadn’t had time to replenish, because suppliers couldn’t get them to us, so I know there were offers, some of the offers came from mid England, because it’s co-ordinated between Welsh Government and UK Government. We had, I think it was Slough and a number of other councils—

Reading, Birmingham.

—Birmingham, they were all offering, ‘We can give you five lorries of sandbags, 1,000 sandbags.’ We were able to source a few thousand to add to what we had, so we did have some supplies, but it is that mechanism through Welsh Government and the LRF for mutual assistance.

Right. What about you in Anglesey? Any comments on the Welsh Government framework and the local resilience forum?

We have heard about the challenging situation in the Valleys and that the higher parts of the Valleys are different to the lower parts. One different issue we deal with on Anglesey is that we are an island, so there are times when it rains a lot when there is a high tide, and then it’s a challenge dealing with that rainfall at high tide. Storms tend to happen at those periods. And we do have examples where it’s not possible to get rid of that rainwater when the tide is high, because there simply isn’t anywhere for it to go, so that’s a unique challenge for rural areas.

The collaboration with other agencies is similar to what colleagues from Rhondda Cynon Taf described. One of the Members referred earlier to the water crisis that occurred in Conwy county, not because of the weather, but because a water pipe had blown in the Trefriw area, and a regional call did go out on that occasion to other authorities in north Wales to see what support they would be able to offer, going to Conwy county and helping to send water provisions to individuals. Fortunately, that didn’t need to happen, since the water supply was returned, but arrangements were put in place, and the authorities were ready to help each other.

Thank you, and finally from me, we’ve discussed the priority customer register and some of the issues with that, but what sort of planning do you put in place to ensure that there is continuous power and water supply to places like care homes and to vulnerable communities, and people, say, in very rural areas? Do you have any plans for those sorts of situations?

If I touch on it, and perhaps hand over to Andrew then. We had a situation where, in storm Darragh, a care home lost power. All our care homes, as in the local authority-owned care homes, have back-up generators. Not all independent sector private care homes, private nursing homes—they don’t. That is something through our social care colleagues we are now challenging them on, and saying, as part of their business continuity plans, they have to, and my line—. I don’t know if we can do this, but I've asked officers, as part of any commissioning, when we place people, there should be an expectation for a care home to have those back-ups, because if there was—. We were hit quite badly by the wind, but there were lots of individual small outages that were back on quickly. If we were without power for many days, we could have seen some significant, real issues.

Just to give you an example, if I recall, I think we used a school kitchen in an area that had power to do the food for the home that had lost power. Certainly, we were either making the plans or we did actually go through with it, but we had to use a school in one community that had power to look at doing the food for the home because the home was without power for 24 hours. In other communities then, we had issues—one came directly to myself that I fed to the tactical group and that was that somebody needed to warm baby formula for their baby but they had no power. Their community was flooded in Gilfach. The culvert had blown there, where we had the sinkhole, so they couldn't physically get out to the community. So, we actually allowed one of our staff in a 4x4 to pick that young man up with the baby to take him to their mother's house where they had power, and on the back of that we decided to open a rest centre at the leisure centre. Because another message coming through was that people's mobile phones were running flat, so we said we'd open a leisure centre, so, 'If you want to come along, have a hot drink, charge your mobile phone, do whatever you want to do.' So we have plans like that in place, but in terms of resilience, that is something we have said again, that we want a lessons learned report to our cabinet.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm afraid the clock is beaten us. We've got 15 minutes left, so Carolyn, then Delyth, then Julie, and then Joyce, and I think by that point we'll have run out of time.

Okay. Before you said it's not statutory to provide sandbags. People will call for sandbags, desperate, when it's flooding. I know they can't store them. You have to fill them up beforehand, don't you? So, what is the policy regarding sandbags? For clarification.

For our local authority, if you're at imminent risk of flooding we’ll provide them. Unfortunately, if somebody says, 'I'd like sandbags, because I'm worried I might get flooded’, in some cases we won't provide them simply because of the limited number of vehicles and resources we have at a time. So, we may have a street that is flooding, and another area may be concerned that they may flood, but as I say, I can recall the figures—I think it was storm Dennis when we gave out, over that period, something like 13,000 sandbags. In storm Bert we delivered 8,000, and we had to buy in and get more resources. But in many cases, even where we're not the flood risk authority, the first port of call is for the local authority to help. But there is no statutory provision. Some councils in Wales do not provide sandbags to residents unless you are actually being flooded there and then.

I was going to ask, you're the leader of the WLGA, so do you believe that other authorities have got resources to help, and operatives the same? Because some have been impacted by different cuts in funding and things.

Obviously, every local authority is going to make their own decisions on that. I appreciate highways budgets and other front-line services in some years have been cut back in some authorities because of the financial pressure they've been under. We've had over a decade of austerity and unfortunately that has impacted.

So, community-led organisations such as flood groups, they can play a significant role in a response. How do you think they could fit into the wider response framework for extreme weather events? Do they know who to go to? Do they know who's responsible? Like you said, the council's often the first port of call, and sometimes it's NRW, maybe. So, how involved are they, how important are they in being resilient and knowing actually where to go to, and who's responsible for what?

Community flood groups—well, they've got several different names. Certainly it has been challenging. I've spoken to NRW colleagues with regard to a lot of work they've done over the last couple of years, and I believe that they are starting to re-engage and look at this again, but it has been notoriously difficult. Because these things have gaps in between it is very, very quickly forgotten about. It's really difficult to engage the community. We as a council are engaging within communities with very high local sources of flood risk—not the main rivers as such—and we find it very, very difficult. We are engaging more with the third sector with regard to things like the British Red Cross and other organisations that can mobilise lots of different resources, which they did during storm Bert, certainly in the immediate aftermath. It is really difficult, the messaging of flood risk and flood risk to people's properties, and it does come back to the warnings as well. That communication is very, very difficult. I think we're up to about 30 warnings this year in terms of the yellow, so you do get that fatigue, which I think is what caught a lot of people out on storm Bert with regard to the yellow. So, communication is a real problem, but it's certainly something that we're looking at.

And could I just bring Huw in here to respond, perhaps, to the point around sandbags, but also the role of the voluntary sector and volunteers more broadly?

Across north Wales there is a consistent policy by the six local authorities of not providing sandbags beforehand. But in reality, everybody tries to assist people when there's water coming into their homes, and when they come on the phone. A sandbag isn't the solution every time. I have to support the comment that our priority is to try and keep the roads open, to get the emergency services to move about and to ensure that society is operating. So, there are resources available, but not enough to take sandbags to individual homes—they try to do the best they can. But we are also trying to encourage people, particularly those living in homes in more vulnerable areas close to rivers and watercourses, if it's possible, and if their circumstances allow it, to make provision beforehand, because we can't give assurances that we will be there, when we're dealing with a number of emergencies across the island.

In terms of the flood groups, it depends a lot on where there groups are. We've got a very enthusiastic group in Beaumaris. That is being run by a very enthusiastic individual, but I note that they are volunteers, and the situation does vary from one community to another. And as we've heard, storm warnings do appear quite often, and we then rely on the training and the availability of these individuals to go out to deal with the storms, depending on the colour of the warning.

Diolch yn fawr. [Interruption.] Sorry, we've got to move on, I'm afraid. We've got nine minutes left.

Okay.

So, Delyth, do you want to come in on this point—that is, at this time, not on this issue?

Ocê. Gwnaf i ofyn dau beth yn gyflym, os yw hwnna'n iawn.

Would you like me to cover the culverts question, Chair?

It's up to you. I mean, we've spoken quite a bit about culverts earlier, I think.

Okay. In that case, could I ask one question following up from that, and then one final question? Because of the problems that have happened with landslips and certain particular problems that seem to be where the topography of, for example, Valleys communities, do you think that there should be specific targeted funding given, from central Government, to look at the resilience of communities where their topography, like the Valleys, for example, leaves them particularly open to the risks of storms?

In a word.

In a word, I'd say 'yes'. But if I could just put this point out there that, if you look at the surface water flood risk for Wales, 25 per cent of all the risk is in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and those are the stats from across Wales. We have 25 per cent of all the risk in Wales for surface water, ordinary watercourse flooding, in RCT. I have to say, we've been well supported by Welsh Government in terms of bids we've put in. We've secured between £4 million and £5 million, sometimes £6 million a year, in terms of funding. But it is something that I would like to see, if it was possible, that there was an allocation of funding, so we didn't have to, perhaps, quite do the competitive bidding in the same way, because we have such a severe risk. But at the same time—I know I've had conversations with Ministers—one of the issues is, even if Ministers made significant extra sums of money available, for example to RCT, there's a limit of capacity in terms of contractors and engineers, and there's quite a lot of design work and modelling needed. So, there is a balance to be struck. But in fairness, we do get good funding and, hopefully, that will continue.

Thank you for that. But as well as what you're saying, which is a particular risk with RCT, for Valleys communities, and those where the topography means that they're more at risk, should there be a specific allocated fund, then? You've already said 'yes', so I won't ask you to repeat that.

If that was offered to me, I would take it.

And me.

Thank you for that. And then finally from me—and this is for all witnesses, please—obviously, we know that climate change means that the risks of these extreme weather events is going to increase. Do you feel that local response frameworks in terms of infrastructure are in a good position to deal with changes, but also in terms of dealing with the psychological effects that affect people who are either affected time and again by flooding, or people living under coal tips, for example, and the fear that they will feel, either if something has happened, or if they're in an area of high risk?

Can I just say, anecdotally—I don't know the detail on this to give you a proper answer—I'm certainly seeing more people who I'm engaging with who are, I think, suffering from anxiety, mental health, where they've been flooded two or three times, or when people see coal tips on news, there'll be a flurry of e-mails. Sometimes they just need reassurance, to let them know, 'Yes, you are by a coal tip that's being monitored' et cetera. But you can imagine people's anxiety, and sometimes the lack of information is part of the problem. So, I think it's trying to give people informed advice and information, and that is something we are trying to address.

Can I just—?

No, sorry. We're up against time now.

Huw, did you want to add anything there?

The only thing that I would add is to say that we are just scratching the surface here in terms of the long-term impacts of events on the mental health of citizens.

Thank you for that clear message. Julie.

Obviously, there’s the individual effect on people’s mental health, but also there’s the financial effect on individuals, and the issue about how they then get insurance after they’ve had these episodes. So, are you involved in working with any individuals, householders or businesses, who now find it difficult to get insurance because of the flooding they’ve had?

Yes, so our website has lots of information with regard to how to obtain and what to do during the events with regard to insurance. Yesterday—. One of my other roles is I sit on the FCEC as well. We’ve had conversations with the Association of British Insurance and Flood Re with regard to the communication of those processes as well. So, certainly, at a governmental level, there is that link to the insurance. However, it is very, very complex, the way that they do it, and I think that complexity sometimes really is lost on a lot of communities, in terms of how to get it.

So, it is possible to get the insurance even if you’ve suffered a number of flooding incidents.

If the residential property was built before 2009, currently. That’s what the criteria is.

And Huw, the context is slightly different on Anglesey, but the same problems still remain there.

Yes. One thing I’d like to add is that for less populated areas, more rural areas, individual homes, when a property is flooded, the local authority does a section 19 flood inquiry. Not every property owner wishes to have such an inquiry, because it could affect their ability to have insurance, or it could become clear if they try to sell the property. So, some don’t take advantage of the opportunity that’s available to them with regard to that support and research.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Just to say, one gap in that is business insurance—that’s not covered, and that’s something that comes up time and time again. With small businesses, we are giving grants of £10,000, asking them to tile their floors, raise electrics, put in flood guards, because they can’t get insurance. If they’ve got no insurance, they are losing thousands of pounds of stock every time.

So, it’s only households.

Residential, yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay, the final question to Carolyn.

So, you provide funding. Is there any Welsh Government funding for residents to buy flood defences, to buy flood guards? No.

We can bid for funding as part of the flood risk management grants we put in. And we have had some funding where the local authority has been provided with gates et cetera, if we are developing a scheme for the future, but because it’s going to go through a three-year business case, then we will provide floodgates, maybe, initially, to protect them until that scheme comes online. But our scheme, at present, is we’re giving £10,000 to businesses in town centres to try and make them more resilient when they’ve been flooded.

That's you as a local authority.

That's our own resource that we're using.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you very much for your attendance and the evidence that you’ve given us. We had to rush through several aspects of the inquiry there. There might be questions that, perhaps, we would want to follow up on, ones that we didn’t manage to ask you today. So, perhaps you could reply to those in writing, if that’s okay with you. But you will receive a draft copy of the transcript as well to check for accuracy. So, with that, may I thank you for your attendance here today and for the evidence that you’ve given us? Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

We will carry on with our work as a committee. So, item 5 is the papers to note. There are 12 papers to note. Is the committee happy to note those all together? Yes. Thank you very much. There we are, then.

Ac wedyn, dŷn ni am symud, felly, i ran breifat y cyfarfod. Felly, yn unol â Rheolau Sefydlog 17.42(vi) a (ix), dwi’n cynnig bod y pwyllgor yn penderfynu cyfarfod yn breifat am weddill y cyfarfod, os yw Aelodau’n fodlon. Pawb yn hapus? Ydyn. Mi wnawn ni hynny, felly, ac mi oedwn ni am eiliad i’r cyfarfod gael mynd i mewn i sesiwn breifat. Diolch yn fawr.