Chamber and committees

In line with the Government Financial Reporting Manual, Scottish Water publishes the pay ratio of the Chief Executive against the pay received by other employees in the company in its Annual Reports, available at www.scottishwater.co.uk/Help-and-Resources/Document-Hub/Key-Publications/Annual-Reports .

Over the last 5 years, Scottish Water’s workforce has remained broadly stable at around 4,500 employees. It supports thousands of additional jobs through its supply chain and provides information on this in its Annual Reports, available at www.scottishwater.co.uk/Help-and-Resources/Document-Hub/Key-Publications/Annual-Reports . In 2022-23, 75% of its supply chain was made up of SMEs and more than 90% of its spend was on organisations located in Scotland.

Scottish Water publishes information on staffing levels in its Annual Reports, available at www.scottishwater.co.uk/Help-and-Resources/Document-Hub/Key-Publications/Annual-Reports .

While we have not undertaken a review of the implementation of the surcharge which may be applied to applications which are submitted where development has been carried out without permission.

We continue to liaise with Heads of Planning Scotland to understand the impact of the changes to planning fees implemented in 2022, on the overall resourcing of planning services.

In August 2021, Police Scotland submitted a bid to the Road Safety Framework Fund and received a grant offer of £300,000 for a National Dashcam Safety Portal (NDSP) pilot.

£21,732 of this funding was utilised to undertake initial scoping work on options and Transport Scotland retained the rest of the funding and used it to deliver other road safety measures aimed at reducing casualties on Scotland’s roads. The Scottish Government remained committed to delivering the initiative alongside Police Scotland, and ensured that the budget was available the following financial year.

However, as part of the scoping work, Police Scotland has now concluded that a stand-alone portal is neither the optimum nor best value route to create the capability for digital media to be submitted by members of the public. The Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC) Programme, currently in pilot in Dundee, will make it easy for a member of the public to submit digital evidence as part of an investigation following a report to the police. DESC will enable development of further capabilities where scope to further improve the service to the public is identified.

Scottish Water has over 400 supply chain partners. Over 90% of its procurement expenditure is on businesses based in Scotland and 75% of their supply chain classified as small or medium sized enterprises. Scottish Water sets out information on its supply chain in its Annual Reports, available at www.scottishwater.co.uk/Help-and-Resources/Document-Hub/Key-Publications/Annual-Reports .

Scottish Water is responsible for providing services, including during periods of industrial action. Scottish Water successfully ensured there were no service interruptions for their customers during recent strikes.

The Scottish Government was consulted by Scottish Water and is satisfied that the correct process was followed by the Scottish Water board in setting the remuneration of the Chief Executive. Scottish Water’s Executive salaries are amongst the lowest of any comparable utility in the UK.

This is a matter for Scottish Water. Scottish Water utilises a variety of approaches regarding price increases during the life of a contract framework, agreed at the point of award.

Pay negotiations are a matter for Scottish Water as the employer and the Trade Unions. Industrial action has been suspended pending a ballot on a new offer.