Scottish Water £3m bonuses attacked by local Liberal Democrats

“Outrageous when sewage spills continue”

Top executives at Scottish Water were paid almost £3m in bonuses since 2020, despite more than 14,000 sewage dumps last year. In 2022 alone £628,000 was paid to Douglas Millican, Alan Scott and Peter Farrer, which included a one-off long-term incentive payment worth six figures for each executive. It’s no wonder Scottish Water staff are in dispute over their pay.

Local Liberal Democrats have attacked the payouts as outrageous whilst the sewage spills continue.

South Lanarkshire Council Liberal Democrat Group Leader Councillor Robert Brown said:

“I am not a fan of the system of executive bonuses in the public sector, which has been defended by the Scottish Government. But no one should in any event be rewarded for pumping sewage into our rivers and waterways.

That’s why Liberal Democrats are proposing a new Water Act for Scotland. It is high time we updated Scotland’s Victorian sewage network. But we want a blue flag system for Scotland’s rivers like the Clyde, total ban on the release of sewage into protected areas such as bathing waters – and every sewage dump monitored with binding targets for reducing the problem of discharges.

It really is unacceptable that we have a government-owned Water Company where top executives pocket bumper bonuses at public expense at the same time as our rivers, lochs and coastlines are damaged by sewage pollution. Only a small proportion of these are even monitored in Scotland.”