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Rather than deploying permanent monitoring, which is the common approach for water companies in England, Scottish Water has taken an outcomes focussed approach by carrying out comprehensive Scotland-wide environmental modelling (in partnership with SEPA) to assess the impacts of its assets on water quality during the 2015 to 2021 investment period.

The models which Scottish Water developed allowed it to understand when CSOs will spill, under what rainfall conditions these spills occur and the impact these will have on the environment. This work has allowed Scottish Water and SEPA to prioritise environmental focus and Scottish Water to target its investments accordingly. Adopting this approach has seen consistent improvement in Scotland’s water quality with 87% of all waterbodies meeting Good Status or beyond and 97% of bathing waters meeting or exceeding minimum standards as assessed by SEPA.

In addition to the progress made in improving water quality, Scottish Water recognised the need for more transparency in overflow operation and set out the commitment to install more monitors and to publish the data from these in its Improving Urban Waters routemap.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water has already published this data at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/Your-Home/Your-Waste-Water/Overflows/Live-Overflow-Map.

Currently, data from around 1,100 overflow monitor locations is included on the overflow map. As additional monitors are installed and data from these is checked, more monitor locations are added to the overflow map.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is responsible for monitoring the water quality of Scotland’s rivers and designated bathing beaches and publishes its classification results annually.

87% of Scotland’s entire water environment is currently assessed by SEPA as having a high or good classification for water quality, up from 82% in 2014.

SEPA’s most recent Bathing Waters classification shows that 97% of Scotland’s bathing waters currently achieve the bathing water quality standards with 87% being rated good or excellent, up from 84% in 2023.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) currently licences and regulates 345 sewer networks operated by Scottish Water, carrying out inspections on a rolling basis under the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (CAR).

SEPA is currently consulting on its proposals for a new Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme to improve overall levels of compliance, which is available at https://consultation.sepa.org.uk/compliance-and-beyond/epas/.

In 2025, the Scottish Government is incorporating CAR, along with the authorising regimes for industrial emissions, radioactive substances, and waste, into an integrated authorisation framework called the Environmental Authorisation (Scotland) Regulations 2018. One of the main benefits of an integrated authorisation framework for SEPA is more effective enforcement tools to better deal with non-compliant sites and protect the environment. Other benefits are improved efficiency and a more risk based, targeted approach to enforcement.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water has already taken action and made commitments to improve the sewer network under its improving urban waters routemap, published in December 2021 at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/About-Us/What-We-Do/Urban-Waters-Routemap. The routemap set out how Scottish Water will invest to:

• improve water quality (to support Scotland’s River Basin Management Plan objectives)
• increase monitoring and reporting to cover all overflows that discharge into the highest priority waters
• significantly reduce sewer-related debris in the environment
• reduce spills from the sewer network

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that finances remain on a sustainable trajectory and that we continue to reach a balanced position each year. The upcoming Medium Term Financial Strategy and Fiscal Sustainability Delivery Plans will set out how we will progress work to achieve our financial aims over the next five years.

While the Scottish Government ensure devolved benefits are adequately and sustainably financed to provide meaningful support, we are deeply concerned about the cuts to sickness and disability benefits announced by the Labour Government. These changes will push 250,000 people, including 50,000 children into poverty by 2029-30, and will reduce the funding Scotland receives for devolved disability benefits.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water currently has around 1,400 overflow monitors in place (covering over one third of all intermittent discharges). Scottish Water has plans to increase monitor coverage to around 2,000 locations in total (nearly 50% of intermittent discharges) before the end of 2025 and this year will look to determine an approach to establish how many more monitors should be installed in 2026 and beyond.

A significant number of overflow locations are predicted never to spill and monitoring these locations would generate limited value beyond proving that overflow events do not occur. Monitors are relatively expensive to install and deploying these without generating any environmental benefit is unlikely to represent good value for customers.

Scheme allocations are not routinely published, however, Ms. Martin wrote to the convener of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on the 28th of February 2025 detailing the 25-26 budget allocation across the Heat in Buildings Schemes, including an allocation for the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund. As many of our schemes, including the Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund, are demand-led, allocations may change within the financial year.

We recognise that staff are NHS Scotland’s greatest asset. We cannot provide the services that people need and deserve, and put in place improvements in performance without highly qualified, skilled and motivated healthcare staff. This pay offer represents an investment that recognises the value we continue to place on our NHS staff.

The £191 million quoted in the press is the estimated cost to NHS Scotland of the increase in national insurance contributions announced by the UK Government in October 2024. The estimated costs of the two year pay offer the Scottish Government recently made to Agenda for Change staff working in NHS Scotland is a £701 million investment.

It is recognised that workforce and pay costs driven by a period of prolonged high inflation are now contributing to significant budget pressures across health and social care, the wider Scottish Government budget and the whole of the public sector. This Government has been clear that the extent of challenges will not be addressed in a single year and we will continue to make the tough choices necessary to support sustainable public finances, whilst also seeking to minimise the impact on frontline services as far as possible.

The move to the Preference Informed Allocation (PIA) model was supported by the Medical Schools Council, the British Medical Association and all four UK governments. Medical students were extensively consulted on the changes and their impact, with 66% in favour of the change.

2024 recruitment data shows that 75.42% of applicants to UK Foundation programmes received their first choice of foundation school, an increase from the 2023 cycle (pre-PIA) of 71.02%. This has risen further in 2025 to 83.78%, indicating that more applicants are being allocated to their first choice compared with previous years, an improvement that has continued since PIA was first introduced.

The first year of the PIA process has resulted in more resident foundation doctors wanting to train in Scotland being allocated a place in Scotland and has resulted in a more even and equitable distribution of Foundation doctors across NHS Scotland Boards.

More information about the move to the PIA can be found at the following link: https://foundationprogramme.nhs.uk/resources/foundation-programme-allocation-process-stakeholder-engagement/