Corporate report

Flood Forecasting Centre: strategic plan 2021 to 2024

Published 9 May 2022

Applies to England and Wales

1. Foreword by Mark Russell, Head of Centre

The Flood Forecasting Centre has been a successful working partnership between the Environment Agency and the Met Office for over 10 years. We are trusted advisors to government and the responder community. Our guidance provides them with valuable time to prepare in advance of flooding.

There are 2 previous strategic plans. The first developed our partnership working and created our flood forecasting capability. The second focused on improving our services as part of the national flood incident management structure.

We have developed our new, third strategic plan with our users and partners. It sets out how we can, within current funding levels, provide more value in improving the resilience of England and Wales to flooding.

Our contribution depends on the confidence of our users to make decisions to reduce the economic and social impacts of flooding. Whilst maintaining our high technical standards, the plan puts users at the heart of all we will do. We want to ensure that they will trust, understand and have the confidence to act on our guidance. In future, our success will be measured by:

• our technical performance
• how our services are used and the impact this has

We also recognise the value of partnerships, old and new. These, combined with the efficiencies we make, will allow us to remain strong given the pressure on public finances.

Our services will remain aligned with those of the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and the Met Office. If new funding becomes available, we will focus on improving surface water flood forecasting capability. This is a top priority with our users.

Finally, we live in a rapidly changing world. We must remain flexible and adaptable, so we are ready to meet the challenges of the future. In recognition of this we will review the plan each year through this spending review cycle.

2. Who we are

The Flood Forecasting Centre (FFC):

• is a working partnership between the Environment Agency and the Met Office
• is funded by Defra , with a contribution from the Welsh Government
• has an advisory user group representing Category 1 and 2 responders
• has governance arrangements which include a Joint Steering Group between the Environment Agency and the Met Office
• is part of the Incident Management and Response Directorate within the Environment Agency and the Services Directorate within the Met Office
   

3. What we do

We provide a national flood forecasting and guidance service to support government and Category 1 and 2 responders.

Together with the Met Office, Environment Agency, and Natural Resources Wales we provide an integrated forecast-led incident management service for England and Wales. This provides a consistent assessment of flood risk at a national and local scale.

Our:

• overall direction is set by our strategic partners
• services are designed to meet the needs of our users, using the best science and technology available to us

4. Goal, purpose and objectives

The goal of the strategic plan is that:

• the FFC clearly contributes to national resilience

The purpose of the strategic plan is that:

• we evolve our services to maximise their value

We do this for:

• our users by supporting them in making decisions
• our partners by ensuring we collaborate and engage
• our funders by demonstrating the impact of our services
• the UK Government by ensuring we have a clear role in national resilience

The strategic plan has 3 objectives:

1. we capitalise on and deliver through our partnerships
2. we put users at the heart of all we do
3. we ensure the FFC is fit for the future

5. Objective 1: we capitalise on and deliver through our partnerships

For this objective we have 4 success criteria. We will:

• integrate our planning and co-develop our capabilities, improving efficiency wherever possible
• contribute to improving national resilience through integrated flood incident management
• develop our role in surface water flooding to support national resilience
• influence science plans and benefit from early adoption of innovations

To achieve these objectives, our actions will be to:

• align strategic and business plans
• identify opportunities to collaborate through early engagement
• deliver through integrated systems
• engage actively with key science research programmes
• progress opportunities to trial new capabilities
• improve our understanding and communication of confidence in our forecasts
• create roadmaps for improving our forecasting capability
• lead on improving national integration and efficiency across the flood forecasting service

By the end of the plan period, we will demonstrate our progress by these success criteria:

• all new FFC service and model developments will be co-developed with partners - developing capabilities alone will be by exception
• we are trusted advisors to EA, NRW, and Defra on national flood forecasting - we contribute to national resilience and flood reviews, owning and delivering FFC assigned recommendations
• we are implementing our agreed roadmap, which outlines how we develop our role in forecasting surface water flooding at a national level – and we will have agreed a new measure for user satisfaction with our surface water flood risk guidance
• we can demonstrate, through referencing case studies, where our contribution to science plans and joint working has improved our capability  

6. Objective 2: we put users at the heart of all we do

For this objective we have 4 success criteria. We will:

• understand how our users incorporate FFC guidance into their decision making
• develop our services in a way that supports our users to make better decisions
• ensure our users understand FFC guidance and have confidence to use it
• improve our users’ experience when interacting with the FFC

To achieve these objectives, our actions will be to:

• develop a closer relationship with our key user groups
• introduce a whole centre approach to engagement
• ensure service development is led by user needs
• understand our users better through research
• support users to understand and act on information
• ensure users understand our role
• use existing networks and channels to access users
• ensure users can easily access FFC services and information

By the end of the plan period, we will demonstrate our progress by these success criteria:

• we will have produced at least 5 user journeys using behavioural research methods informing our understanding
• all our service improvements and development projects are clearly informed by our user knowledge, and sound user research and testing
• we will have recorded an upward trend of users making decisions based on the FGS flood risk matrix compared to the 2019 baseline
• we improve our users’ experience when interacting with the FFC
• overall satisfaction of the FFC will be at or above the 2019 baseline  

7. Objective 3: we ensure the FFC is fit for the future

For this objective we have 4 success criteria. We will:

• deliver our services more efficiently and improve the value of our work
• invest in the wellbeing, skills and knowledge of our people, providing them opportunities to develop
• improve understanding of the benefits of our work to make better investment decisions
• horizon scan to manage our risks, benefit from new opportunities and develop new perspectives

To achieve these objectives, we will:

• ensure resilient 24/7 services delivered efficiently
• implement new ways of working, enabling more efficient and effective resource management
• seek opportunities for our people to gain wider experience and new perspectives
• promote, through greater insight, the value of our services
• implement effective horizon scanning
• actively manage our digital, data and technical assets

By the end of the plan period, we will demonstrate our progress by these success criteria:

• we will have embedded recommendations from a review of our operational ways of working - and introduced a value-based prioritisation for service improvements
• FFC staff are professionally accredited to meet future needs
• FFC staff contribute significantly to parent organisation-led and international initiatives - thus raising our national and international profile
• we will compile evidence to demonstrate our value to our users to support both investment decisions in our programme and future funding bids
• we will have developed and implemented a structured approach to horizon scanning - allowing us to make decisions in advance with our partners and stakeholders