Public bodies adaptation planning

Public bodies in Scotland are key players at the forefront of responding to climate change impacts in Scotland, given their roles as health, education, housing and social care providers, and emergency and risk management agencies. This study reviews the state of play of public body climate adaptation planning in Scotland. The report highlights approaches for delivering climate adaptation, common themes, similarities and differences between public bodies. It summarises available information on costs and benefits, to help inform a collective understanding among stakeholders and highlight knowledge gaps.

Summary of key findings

Overview of public body adaptation plans

The adaptation planning landscape is complex. In many public bodies, there is no single, dedicated climate adaptation plan; more often, adaptation is integrated into one or more documents. Public body adaptation plans vary widely in their scope, content and levels of maturity. Because of this variability it is difficult to evaluate progress on a like-for-like basis.

Affirming previous findings by the Sustainable Scotland Network, this study found multiple examples of confusion between climate change adaptation (i.e. responding to the impacts of climate change) and climate change mitigation (i.e. reducing greenhouse gas emissions). Public Bodies Climate Change Duties Reports also frequently signposted to documents such as flood risk assessments that they are required to produce but do not constitute dedicated climate adaptation plans. Therefore, public bodies’ self-reported levels of adaptation planning is not always accurate.

Local authorities are not explicitly required by law to produce adaptation plans. The study found that fewer than one-third of local authorities have a dedicated adaptation plan. The remainder have undertaken at least some planning relevant to climate adaptation, in line with their statutory duties on adaptation. Adaptation plans are generally area-wide in scope. These plans frequently made use of guidance, tools and resources made available through the Adaptation Scotland programme. There are several regional plans that have been produced via consortia, which are supported by additional evidence and are comparatively more mature.

As of October 2024, all 22 NHS Boards (including the 14 regional NHS Boards and 8 special NHS boards) have produced a climate change risk assessment (CCRA) and 18 have produced an adaptation plan. There is a requirement for NHS Boards to produce these in a standard Excel-based format, which prompts them to list actions against each risk. These plans generally focused on the organisation’s own operations, assets and supply chain.

The adaptation plans for Historic Environment Scotland, Scottish Water and Transport Scotland were sector-specific and took different approaches to adaptation planning overall. The study observed some key differences between local authorities, NHS boards and the other organisations we reviewed, which likely reflect the different remits, the sectors and geographic areas they cover. Key differences include: the scope of their adaptation planning, the themes and content of their adaptation actions, whether they focused solely on the organisation or on the wider area, and whether they were underpinned by a CCRA.  

Information on costs and benefits in adaptation plans

The research found that the adaptation plans reviewed contained minimal quantitative information on either costs or benefits. The latter are considered qualitatively in varying levels of detail.

For local authorities, the majority of quantitative information that is available comes from two regional economic impacts reports on climate risks produced by Paul Watkiss Associates. East Dunbartonshire Council was the only example found of a local authority that had attempted to downscale this information to a local level. Otherwise, there was minimal cost information aside from a handful of local authorities who cited high-level costs, usually in relation to flood infrastructure or associated damage.

NHS boards are prompted to indicate the cost of adaptation measures in relation to each risk they identify. However, not all of them utilised this part of the form; some fields were left blank and it was not clear why. Where costs were indicated, it was not always clear what they referred to.

Of the other organisations reviewed, only Scottish Water cited costs in its adaptation plan, referring to the level of investment required in future years.

It is likely that more quantitative information on costs and benefits is held by public bodies but not necessarily incorporated into their adaptation plans.

For further details, please read the report.

If you require the report in an alternative format, such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.