Climate Adaptation Plans Review for Scottish Public Bodies

Aether undertook a desk-based review of over 150 climate adaptation plans and related documents, from roughly 60 public organisations. The study focused on plans produced by Local Authorities and NHS boards. The aim was to draw together a coherent understanding of the Scottish Public Bodies climate adaptation planning landscape.  The study compared progress across public bodies in the development of their adaptation plans, highlighted knowledge gaps, and provided recommendations to the Scottish Government on potential policy changes. 

The challenge 

Public bodies in Scotland are at the forefront of responding to the impacts of climate change. Many public bodies are taking steps to plan and implement climate adaptation to make their services and local areas more resilient. There is a requirement under the Climate Change (Duties of Public Bodies: Reporting Requirements) (Scotland) Order 2015, for public bodies in Scotland to produce a Public Bodies Climate Change Duties Report (PBCCDR), detailing their contribution to delivering the national adaptation plan. However, there is no statutory requirement for public bodies to produce their own dedicated climate adaptation plan, although some have done so.  

Where adaptation plans do exist, they tend to vary in their scope, content and levels of maturity. Where they don’t, policies and plans relevant to adaptation may be spread across a range of other strategies and documents. Until now, the current state of play on adaptation planning across public bodies and evidence gaps have not been comprehensively reviewed so areas where additional support may be required had not been identified. 

The solution 

Responding to this challenge, Aether undertook a desk review of climate adaptation plans and related documents such as climate change risk assessments. Aether produced a short report on key findings, and a database summary of findings from the review of the PBCCDRs. 

To undertake the review, a data collection template was developed to enable the team to collate key data. Having a data collection template allowed the team to divide over 150 documents between themselves for review, creating an efficient and consistent process. The templates were then adapted into a database.  

One of the Scottish government’s key areas of interest for this project was understanding how information on the costs and benefits of adaptation was being used for adaptation planning. The research found that the adaptation plans reviewed contained minimal quantitative information on either costs or benefits, although it is likely that public bodies may hold some of this without publiching it in their public facing plans. A key success factor of this project was being flexible within the specification when there was minimal information on costs and benefits of adaptation measures. 

The result 

The study has provided the Scottish Government with a robust overview of public bodies adaptation plans, and a user-friendly database which can be regularly updated with findings.  

The research identifies the need for the Scottish Government to engage with public bodies to better understand the barriers to producing more detailed plans. Other policy recommendations include: 

• Set a requirement for local authorities to produce climate change risk assessments; 
• Provide advice on how regional economic impact assessments can be downscaled to support local adaptation planning and investment; 
• Explore ways to support public bodies with limited resources to produce adaptation plans or CCRAs e.g. signpost information provided by the Adaptation Scotland programme on easy wins and encourage partnership arrangements to share skills, knowledge and budgets. 

The Scottish Government are very happy with the work and have acknowledged its positive impact.

“The report was really well written and of very high quality. It has enabled us to understand what [statutory guidance] is already available, what’s being used, and where there are gaps that should potentially be strengthened by regulation.” – Amanda Fox, Policy Advisor to the Scottish Government.

“[The database] has been useful for me as a starting point to know what to focus on when looking at funding for next year, as well as geographic areas to target.” – Iain Thom, Senior Climate Adaptation Advisor to the Scottish Government.

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