Meeting of the Parliament 04 September 2025
I suspect that most of my constituents had never heard of WICS until this scandal erupted. Many more of them are now aware of this important regulator because of what they have heard in the media, but it is for all the wrong reasons. That is unfortunate, because WICS has a really important job to do.
Given what we now know, it is astonishing that the former CEO was at the helm of the organisation for almost a quarter of a century. I did not have a lot of interaction with WICS, but, as a member of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, I have been involved in panels where we questioned that organisation. At the time—and I think that other colleagues shared my view—I felt that there was a hostility to scrutiny and to questions, so perhaps that should have been a red flag.
I welcome the cabinet secretary, who has inherited a lot of this work, letting the Parliament know that lessons have been learned and changes have been made, but I share the concerns of other members, including Colin Beattie, that the approach cannot be short term. How can we be confident that this situation can never happen again and that it never happens in any other organisation?
Colleagues are right—today, we are looking not just at the culture of the organisation but at all the infrastructure around it. We have seen massive failings in governance and financial control. It is about greed and entitlement. Those people thought that they could go to their work and go out for dinner with their colleagues and cronies and spend hundreds of pounds on booze and fancy meals in luxury hotels and restaurants.
As we talk about this today, I am reminded that tomorrow is national food bank day. Many of our constituents, including many people who are in work, rely on food banks to feed themselves and their families. That is why people are angry when they hear about these kinds of scandals.
Colleagues have talked about the importance of Scottish Water. WICS is the economic regulator of the water industry, and Sarah Boyack set out why it is important that we have a properly functioning regulator. Over the summer, but also over the past few years, industrial relations have been at an all-time low in Scottish Water. The workforce has lost confidence in the senior management team at Scottish Water, and the regulator does not seem to care.
In the cabinet secretary’s reply over the summer to my letter to the First Minister, I think that there was a recognition that things have to improve at Scottish Water. However, I would like to say to the cabinet secretary today that, if the regulator was not doing its job and we cannot rely on the judgment of that organisation in recent times, we must look again at decisions that have been taken at Scottish Water that affect the current workforce, and consider the very real fear that we are seeing backdoor privatisation. I am looking at the cabinet secretary’s face and I can see that she is disagreeing—I am happy for her to intervene. If we look at some recent reports on this and listen to the workers—I urge the cabinet secretary to do so—we see that they are very unhappy and that they are raising the issue because they believe that it is in the public interest to do so.
We all want world-class water in Scotland. We want safe, high-quality water—the issues about water scarcity were rehearsed at First Minister’s question time—but we need to have confidence in the regulator, Scottish Water and the Government, and confidence that they will not take their eye off the ball again. I would be happy to hear the cabinet secretary’s response to that.
16:26