Relevance
There is a critical capacity and skills gap risk to the delivery of flood reduction and resilience benefits in the region. At the same time there are new demands from the Flood and Water Management Act Schedule including a requirement for green skills associated with climate resilience and readiness.
Before SCRIMP, there were two Yorkshire wide initiatives looking at capacity building, which both had widespread support to continue once funding ran out:
- Yorkshire model for assessing capacity was developed (led by Bradford using European Structural Investment Fund)
- Capacity Building Steering Group (funded, and with support from CIRIA), which included an audit to assess capacity. It looked at existing skills, demographics and flood risk management within Local Authorities.
Aims
Board members of West Yorkshire Flood Innovation Programme (WY FLIP) successfully bid for funding £286,293 in levy funding from Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (YRFCC) to mitigate this risk, meet the newly emerging demands and fund the continuation of management of the programme for the next two years. A significant part of the risk is due to the very nature of the work that WY FLIP is seeking to promote and accelerate – innovative methodologies and projects to reduce flood risk, which require new or different skills.
An updated Yorkshire skills audit and training programme will be delivered for Yorkshire Risk Management Authorities and their partners by a leading team of flood and water research, innovation and skills development providers hosted by water@leeds (and drawing on other Yorkshire universities via iCASP).
The extra funding will be used to upskill those who have a flood risk management role to provide more resilient infrastructure, deliver projects which have a positive impact on the environment and address the challenges of climate change. This will ultimately result in greater support for businesses, landowners and economic benefits for the region and beyond.
Next steps
The next step will be to meet with individuals and small teams from partners across the region to collect more data about key training needs, strengths and weaknesses of existing skills audits and training, and details of important stakeholders to consult with so that an audit can be carried out in the New Year. A training programme will be developed based on the results of this audit. Once the skills audit is complete, a programme of work will be designed around priority training packages to benefit teams across the region. The training will be open to all Yorkshire Lead Local Flood Authorities and Yorkshire Regional Flood and Coastal Committee organisations, and wider partnerships via collaboration with catchment partnerships.