Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) are developing MAFPs to help organisations who are involved in responding to a flood work together better. Find guidance for developing the plans and a checklist that is used by LRFs to assess them.
What are Multi Agency Flood Plans and why do we need them?
Local Authorities and other organisations are responsible, under the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA 2004), for developing emergency plans, contingency plans and business continuity plans to help reduce, control or ease the effects of an emergency. The Environment Agency is an active member of Local Resilience Forums in England and Wales and in many cases we take the lead in preparing emergency plans for floods. We refer to these as Multi-Agency Flood Plans.
Guidance for developing Multi Agency Flood Plans
Multi Agency Flood Plan Guidance (England only) provides advice and assistance to help Local Resilience Forums develop Multi Agency Flood Plans. It explains why we need them and describes a method for developing the plans. The guidance can be found in the last section of the National Flood Emergency Framework for England, published and maintained by Defra.
Multi Agency Flood Plan Checklist
Local Resilience Forums can use a Multi Agency Flood Plan checklist (England only) to help them assess whether their Multi Agency Flood Plans are ‘satisfactory’ in terms of being consistent with the national guidance. The Multi Agency Flood Plan Checklist is an assessment tool to help Local Resilience Forums score and rate their plans.
What progress has been made in preparing Multi Agency Flood Plans?
In May 2011, 51 per cent of the plans that were assessed by the Environment Agency / Local Resilience Forums scored as ‘satisfactory’ or ‘very satisfactory’ compared with 25 per cent in 2009-10 and 8 per cent in 2008-09.
