Committee
Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee 18 March 2021
18 Mar 2021 · S5 · Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee
Item of business
Section 22 Report
“The 2019/20 audit of Scottish Water”
Thank you. I go back to Dame Susan on the completely different subject of remuneration within Scottish Water. I do not want to talk about individuals or anything like that; I am looking at it from a policy point of view and talking about the total remuneration package and how that is—Inaudible. The permanent secretary of the Scottish Government had a budget that was well over £40 billion this year and they receive total remuneration of the order of £170,000 a year. Including pension, that is probably £200,000. The chief executive of NHS Scotland is paid even less than that to run a very complex organisation that is vital to us all, with a budget of well over £12 billion a year. You can understand why people are perplexed about why the total remuneration packages for running Scottish Water are 50 to 100 per cent higher than those. Can Susan Rice explain the justification for that?
In the same item of business
The Convener
Lab
Agenda item 2 is consideration of the section 22 report “The 2019/20 audit of Scottish Water”. I welcome our witnesses: Dame Susan Rice, chair of Scottish Wa...
Dame Susan Rice (Scottish Water and Scottish Water Business Stream)
Good morning, convener and members. Thank you for inviting us to give evidence. We value the committee’s scrutiny, the Auditor General’s report and the overa...
The Convener
Lab
Thank you for that introduction, Dame Susan. Colin Beattie will begin the questioning.
Colin Beattie (Midlothian North and Musselburgh) (SNP)
SNP
I want to look at Scottish Water’s business acquisition strategy. According to the report, Business Stream purchased the non-household customer book of Yorks...
The Convener
Lab
We will direct all questions to Dame Susan, and she will bring in her colleagues as appropriate.
Dame Susan Rice
We had very clear reasons for making those acquisitions. Jo Dow can explain those to you.
Johanna Dow (Scottish Water Business Stream)
We entered the English market with the full support of all our stakeholders, and it was very much necessitated by a desire to protect our Scottish customer b...
Colin Beattie
SNP
You touched on the need to protect your Scottish base. How volatile do you consider your customer base to be?
Johanna Dow
We operate in a competitive environment and our customers can choose to switch to another retailer if they are not content with the service or the price that...
Colin Beattie
SNP
What percentage is the attrition rate?
Johanna Dow
The UK average is about 4 per cent a year, and our figure is 3.1 per cent.
Colin Beattie
SNP
Given the fact that you have taken on those acquisitions, what has been the effect of Covid-19? Has it had any impact on the quality of the assets or on the ...
Johanna Dow
All our customers, the length and breadth of the UK, have been impacted by Covid to some extent. Most impacted is our small and medium-sized enterprise custo...
Colin Beattie
SNP
I have one last question. You have the contract for supplying water services to the Scottish public sector. Does that increase your financial resilience, and...
Johanna Dow
It impacts our financial resilience in the sense that it provides a positive contribution to our profitability. It has another impact in that, as you know, t...
Alex Neil (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
SNP
I have a simple question about Business Stream for Dame Susan and her team. We have our own regulator in Scotland that regulates Scottish Water and its subsi...
Dame Susan Rice
That is a good question. I will ask Johanna Dow to give you some of the detail. There are 27 or 28—the numbers move around a little bit—retail providers, so...
Johanna Dow
I am in the really fortunate position of being regulated by two organisations—one, as you say, based in Scotland and one based in England. We are regulated b...
Alex Neil
SNP
On Scottish Water’s decision to make the facility to borrow from it available to Business Stream if money was needed as a result of the Covid crisis, did Sco...
Johanna Dow
Yes, we did, and the approval process for that took many months. The WICS was actively engaged throughout, and it had ultimate approval at the end of the pro...
Alex Neil
SNP
I will move on to the Scottish market. I am stepping down next month, but I have been an MSP for 22 years. In that time, I have had very few complaints about...
Johanna Dow
The level of customer satisfaction within the entirety of our customer base is high: it is currently sitting at just under 90 per cent. It is measured using ...
Alex Neil
SNP
That is good news. However, there is a 10 per cent gap in satisfaction between the smaller companies and, I presume, the larger companies. Is it one of your ...
Johanna Dow
It is. At the moment, the gap is 9 per cent. There will always be a gap because one of the things that influences that score is whether a customer has had re...
Alex Neil
SNP
Thank you. I go back to Dame Susan on the completely different subject of remuneration within Scottish Water. I do not want to talk about individuals or anyt...
Dame Susan Rice
Yes, I can. It is a helpful question; let me see whether I can give an answer that explains it. I will come at it from two directions. First, Scottish Water ...
Alex Neil
SNP
The chief executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is paid less than 50 per cent of the total remuneration package of the chief executive of Scottish Water...
Dame Susan Rice
As I said before, I do not know the NHS in detail, so it is hard for me to respond specifically to that example. However, I would say that what Scottish Wate...
Alex Neil
SNP
I would say the health service—
Dame Susan Rice
Excuse me. I would say that the work that the business does—