Competent authorities for the flood risk management plan – reflections on flood and spatial planning in England

National implementation of the F loods D irective required the member states to each designate a ‘competent authority’. This raises the question of what are the necessary competencies of the designated authority and what are the necessary powers required to deliver the directive. A fundamental problem in water governance is the ‘vertical‐horizontal problem’ of integration but rules necessarily fragment and water management is highly coupled with many other policy areas. This paper reviews how the emphasis on vertical and horizontal integration in flood risk management has evolved over time and argues that vertical integration has been promoted at increasing cost to horizontal integration.