Scottish Water chiefs earn ‘eye-watering’ pay hike – Daily Business

Senior executives at publicly-owned Scottish Water have enjoyed a £230,000 hike in pay and bonuses, while customer bills rocketed by 10%.

Executives received £1.38 million in the last financial year, up from almost £1.15m in the year before, the body’s annual report shows.

Chief executive Alex Plant’s basic salary has gone up by £49,000 to £295,000. His total package including bonuses and pension contributions, totalled £523,000.

Peter Farrer, chief operating officer, saw his salary fall by £21,000, but his overall package increased by £13,000 to £312,000.

Alan Dingwall – who joined the firm last year as chief financial officer – was paid a salary of £175,000 and a total package of £293,000.

Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said: “People across Scotland are struggling to make ends meet, yet the wages of bosses at Scottish Water are eye-watering and continue to rise.

“This will stick in the craw for people across the country, with water bills having inflation-busting increases, by almost 10% in April this year, after a rise of 8.8% last year.

“Chief executive Alex Plant has warned about the need for increased investment yet is still happy to be handed a huge boost in his salary of almost £50,000.”

She said bosses were “picking up hefty incentive bonuses… just for doing the job they are already paid for, all at the expense of Scottish taxpayers.”

A spokesman for Scottish Water said: “Scottish Water is one of the largest and best-performing utilities in the UK, but executive pay is significantly lower than in similarly sized private companies, where we need to compete for talent.

“Across the business, the biggest percentage pay rises have been given to the lowest-paid workers, narrowing the gap between the chief executive’s pay and median employee earnings, which is already much smaller than the pay ratios in other companies of our scale.

“Total remuneration also includes pension contributions and variable pay related to performance, which is only paid when the business delivers strong results, as it did last year, with 94% customer satisfaction.

“Every Scottish Water employee is eligible for an annual outperformance payment.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said bonuses over the past ten years had risen to over £2.5 million and those paid out in 2024/25 represented the third highest on record, despite water bills going up sharply and 24,398 sewage dumps last year.

“The SNP government is rewarding their [its] water company for failure. Scottish Water are [is] paying out enormous bonuses to bosses who are presiding over filthy sewage dumps and hitting customers with bigger bills.

“We don’t even know the true scale of the sewage dumping that Scottish Water is presiding over because so little of the network is monitored properly, especially compared to England where 100% is monitored.

“To turn the tide on the sewage scandal, Scottish Liberal Democrats have published plans for a Clean Water Act that would bring our sewage network into the 21st century, clamp down on dumping and end this disgusting practice.”