PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Flood Control: Cost Effectiveness (12 January 2017)

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 10 January 2017 to Question 58346, on flood control, what efficiencies have been identified to achieve the target savings listed in that Answer.

Asked by:
Rachael Maskell (Labour)

The Environment Agency’s 6 year capital investment programme for flood and coastal erosion risk management will reduce the flood risk for at least 300,000 homes between 2015/16 and 2021.

Efficiency savings in the capital programme have been identified in the following categories:

• innovation and value engineering - where innovative solutions, methods or materials have been used to achieve the same result at reduced cost

• packaging and programming - where similar projects have been delivered together more efficiently

• controlling project scope - for example, by maintaining focus on original project outcomes

• contracting approach - for example, where contracts encourage consultants and contractors to deliver more efficiently

• streamlining - for example where co-located teams or systems improvements have led to reduced costs

• standardisation and building information modelling (BIM) - where existing designs, documents and best practice have been used

• operational productivity

• bulk buying and economies of scale

Answered by:
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Conservative)
17 January 2017