Improving water services

We have made significant improvements to our water and sewerage services since Scottish Water's creation in 2002, and we will continue to make further improvements to ensure standards remain high.

Current improvement plan: 2021 to 2027

The current improvement plan, called a regulatory period or Strategic Review (SR21), covers 6 years from 2021 to 2027.

Recognising the need to be able to respond flexibly to the longer term challenges facing the industry, and to cater for the need to carefully prioritise investment going forward, stakeholders worked together to co-create an Investment Planning and Prioritisation Framework (IPPF) for SR21.

The framework was developed to encourage collaboration amongst stakeholders and involve them in prioritising investment needs in the lead up to, and throughout, the 2021-27 period.  Scottish Water's investment programme is therefore no longer fixed at the start of the investment period but will build over time. To support this process, Scottish Water worked with stakeholders to co-create a Strategic Plan, which sets out its role in starting to deliver the long term Water Sector Vision.

The investment requirements will remain under regular stakeholder review throughout the period to take account of emerging needs and changing priorities. The Investment Planning and Prioritisation Group (IPPG) has been created to manage this process.

The Delivery Assurance Group (DAG) continues to review Scottish Water's progress in delivering its investment programme and provides re-assurance to Ministers.

The planned improvements for SR21 are set out in the Scottish Water: ministerial directions 2020 and cover:

  • drinking water quality
  • the environment
  • customer service
  • enabling new connections
  • mitigating and adapting to climate change

Previous service improvement

The Delivery Assurance Group (DAG) has produced a report on improvements delivered during the previous regulatory period from 2015 to 2021.

Reports for prior regulatory periods can be found in the archive.

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