Customers and ethics sit at the centre of WICS’ plans for Scotland’s next price review

The Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS) is consulting on a draft methodology for the 2027-32 Strategic Review of Charges for Scottish Water which puts ethical business practice and regulation (EBP&R) and the voice of the customer at its heart.

The regulator intends to continue to support open and frank conversations about industry challenges and the best ways to address them through EBP&R. For customers, there will be a multi-stakeholder research coordination group to design and implement a comprehensive customer research programme. And Scottish Water will be required to ensure a Customer Challenge Group provides additional assurance on the quality of its engagement and research, and the extent to which customer priorities and research have been reflected in its business plan.

Those two principles sit at the centre of three others that will underpin SRC27: accountability (with Scottish Water board and external assurance requirements); evidence and analysis (including a requirement for a range of investment options to be put forward, covering nature-based and innovative solutions as well as more traditional ones); and flexibility (to ensure effective response to change).

The price review will take a long term approach. Scottish Water will need to create a business plan proposing investment across different asset categories, with efficiency benchmarked against Ofwat’s cost models.

It will also need to produce a delivery plan showing how it proposes to meet the requirements of the Final Determination and undertake an annual delivery plan refresh before each financial year to capture any changes to the investment baseline. WICS will review the efficiency of a sample of projects. 

The consultation runs until 9 October.