Scottish Water

Parent Company:         Scottish Government

Regulated utility:           Scottish Water Ltd

Ownership:                     Public sector

In Scotland the provision of water and sewage services is the responsibility of Scottish Water a nationalised, public sector organisation answerable to the Scottish Parliament.

Scottish Water is the 4th largest water services provider in the UK and serves customers across one third of the land area of Britain. It is in Scotland's list of top 20 companies by turnover. It came into being in April 2002.

At its formation Scottish Water was seen as being very cost inefficient and a long way behind the English water companies. Being a nationalised company and supplier of an essential commodity for life - water - it was and is very much in the public eye.

Now nine years on performance has significantly improved with massive capital investment delivered (2.4 billion in the period 2006-10) and service significantly improved to its best ever. The company is much more efficient with costs down by over 40% and performance matching the rest of Britain's water companies.

Scottish Water is accountable to a number of regulatory bodies. Scottish Ministers appoint the Chair and Non-executive Directors. The economic regulator is the Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS). The environmental regulator is the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) while drinking water has its own quality regulator. Waterwatch Scotland represents the views of customers.

Scottish Water delivers its capital investment programme partially via an in-house capital delivery team, CID, responsible for below ground assets and via a Joint Venture called Scottish Water Solutions 2 for above ground assets. This JV is between Scottish Water and the Thistle Water consortium comprising Jacobs UK Ltd, Laing O'Rourke Infrastructure Ltd and Veolia Water UK plc.

In the current period (2010-2015) Scottish Water has to deliver over £2.5 bn of capital investment in maintaining assets and improving environmental performance. Two issues are particularly important, reducing leakage by a third by 2015 and reducing rain and ground water seepage into its overloaded sewer systems. Scottish Water's vision is to be Scotland's most valued and trusted business.