Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 implementation: report to the Scottish Parliament - 2020

6. The Scottish Flood Forum Update

The Scottish Flood Forum (SFF) is an independent Scottish Charity that supports individuals and communities at risk of flooding, including immediate support in the event of flooding as part of its flood recovery programme, flood resilience and awareness raising. Since 2019, SFF also coordinate the Property Flood Resilience Delivery Group. The Scottish Government has grant funded the SFF since 2009, with an increase in funding to £193,000 in 2020-21.

During a unique year, SFF have had to adapt their support approach, initially delivering support to communities virtually, and as the pandemic evolved blending their options of support to include telephone and email support, on-line surgeries and face to face meeting where restrictions allowed.

6.1 Flood Recovery, Resilience and Awareness Raising

The SFF recovery programme provides an Integrated Recovery Framework in which both the community and local authorities work in partnership towards a common goal of rebuilding and reuniting the community. They have a unique person-centred approach to dealing with flood impacted communities at both the recovery stage in the immediate aftermath of a flood and as the communities prepare for future resilience. This tailored support helps build personal and community resilience in a way that enables individuals to plan, prepare, respond and recover from future events and "build back better".

SFF supported over 70 community flood groups in 2020, directly and indirectly, at various stages of development across Scotland and supported the development of new groups in the Perth and Kinross and Fife council areas. SFF received over 200 enquiries from residents covering 26 of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland, where advice was provided on topics such as flood risk insurance, property level protection and dealing with the impacts of flood events.

Further detail on SFF's community support is available in Annex A.

6.2 Community Flooding Volunteers

The Scottish Government continues to financially support The Conservation Volunteers Scotland (TCVS) who bring a citizen science approach to local community groups to develop activities that help manage flood risk in their area. TCVS is working with SFF, Clackmannanshire Council and Stirling Council to deliver the Citizen Science Community Monitoring project. This project helps raise awareness of flood risk and get local communities involved in recording useful information about local burns.