John Swinney defends cuts to flood warnings agency
Scotland's Deputy First Minister has defended budget cuts to the agency responsible for flood warnings as the clean-up from Storm Frank continues.
Scotland's Deputy First Minister has defended budget cuts to the agency responsible for flood warnings as the clean-up from Storm Frank continues.
John Swinney faced criticism for reducing funding for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) by 6%, from £39 million to £36.6 million, in his recent draft budget for 2016-17.
The agency is responsible for Scotland's national flood forecasting, flood warning and strategic flood risk management.
Scotland bore the brunt of the severe storm on Wednesday which left people stranded, in temporary accommodation and without electricity.
More flooding is expected, with a fresh Met Office amber ''be prepared'' warning for heavy rain in force for the Grampian, Central, Tayside and Fife areas until Monday night.
Mr Swinney told the Sky News Murnaghan programme that the Scottish Government was committed to doing all it could to help those affected by flooding.
He said: The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has a broad range of responsibilities and what the budget settlement provides for is sustained funding for the flood forecasting service for example, and also for the investment that is necessary in a variety of flood protection and flood alleviation schemes which we have sustained since we came to office in 2007 and which we intend to sustain for the duration of this budget settlement.
We've got a lot of work that's being done just now to protect communities from the harsh effects of flooding.
Flooding and the implications of flooding are very serious for individuals and the Government is committed to doing all that we can to support communities in withstanding these challenges.''
Mr Swinney said capital funding had been put in place for flood prevention schemes across Scotland, including in Edinburgh, Elgin, Selkirk and Galashiels.
The Scottish Government's spending plans for the next financial year also included £4 million for councils hit by an earlier wave of floods.
He added: What we work with our local authority partners to do is to make sure that all of the preventative activity that we can undertake is put in place to support communities in establishing a much more resilient approach to dealing with flooding and to ensure that we support communities where these very harsh effects take their course to recover as quickly as possible.''