This guest blog is written by Dr Elizabeth Lawson as part of the SPICe Academic Fellowship Scheme. The scheme enables academics to work on projects with the Parliament in support of parliamentary scrutiny.
This four-part blog series explores reform of water, wastewater and drainage policy in Scotland. Part one explored key challenges facing Scotland’s water industry. This blog explores opportunities for reform of water legislation. This blog series accompanies a SPICe briefing ‘Scotland’s water industry: overview of regulation and key challenges’.
As with all guest blogs, what follows are the views of the authors and not those of SPICe, or of the Scottish Parliament.
Introduction
The Scottish Government’s 2023 water, wastewater and drainage policy consultation paper acknowledges there is currently no legal requirement for the Scottish Government to plan water resources.
However, Scottish Ministers have a legal duty to take ‘reasonable steps’ to ensure the development of Scotland’s water resources in ‘ways designed to promote the sustainable use of the resources’.
Recent research has highlighted that the lack of a legal requirement to plan for water resources in terms of water allocation leads to significant gaps in data and understanding about how much water is being abstracted and by whom.
The water and wastewater sector can be broadly separated into:
- Water services, such as drinking water supply, wastewater treatment and rainwater drainage.
- Water resources, such as rivers, lochs, reservoirs and groundwater.
The current legal and policy framework in Scotland is complex. The legislative framework for water and wastewater in Scotland is built around two key pieces of primary legislation:
- The Sewerage (Scotland) Act 1968: set out requirements for Local Authorities (now Scottish Water) to ensure that sewage and surface water was effectively drained and treated.
- The Water (Scotland) Act 1980: established the powers and duties of water authorities (now Scottish Water).
Both Acts pre-date the re-convening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, which has devolved responsibility for water and the environment. These Acts also predate Scottish Water, which was established by the Water Industry (Scotland) Act 2002.
Since the introduction of these Acts, there has been significant institutional and regulatory change in areas which intersect with water policy, such as public health and environment.
Resolving the key challenges facing Scotland’s water sector could be better enabled by consolidating and redefining the legal framework following the UK’s exit from the EU. The Scottish Government recognises these challenges which have initiated its review of current policy and legislation.
Opportunities to strengthen strategic planning for water resources
Scotland’s approach to the future management of water services and resources must consider geography, local and changing climate, and the context of the diversity of demands that are placed on water systems.
Scotland’s water resources are comprised of a range of river basins, lochs, aquifers and coastlines all of which are unique and may mean that different solutions will be required for different areas.
98 per cent of Scotland’s land is home to just 17 per cent of the population which raises additional challenges when operating critical infrastructure systems. System-wide challenges faced in Aberdeenshire, are not the same as those faced in the Western Isles. Therefore, any update to the legislative framework needs to reflect this.
The Scottish Government’s review of water, wastewater and drainage legislation provides an opportunity for a new approach to the management and operation of water services and resources. This could allow for the creation of a system that works for all now, and into the future. A system that is centred on resilience and sustainability and has integration of wider policy at its heart.
Scottish Water has demonstrated leadership in this area through its long-term strategy, Net Zero route map and climate change adaptation strategy, but reform of legislation and policy may be needed to support delivery.
Scotland benefits from the existence of a single publicly owned service provider in Scottish Water, which has the advantage of integrated data and infrastructure at a national-level and accountability and transparency to the public and its customers. It also plays a role in delivering the Scottish Government’s environmental and social agendas through the Hydro Nation initiative.
Areas of focus identified in the Scottish Government’s review include the need for clearer and more consistent long-term direction, and an increased focus on infrastructure resilience. Wider system planning for water is not new in Scotland, and the existing River Basin Management Plans provide a good example of a more integrated and collaborative approach.
However, outcomes from the water and wastewater sessions at the Scottish Rural and Islands Parliament 2023, highlighted how engagement with local actors can be weak, with their views getting lost in the system. Individuals who took part in the session expressed feelings of a lack of technical and operational support from their local authorities.
A move to a more regional approach for water service and resource planning could allow for increased integration with local government and local democracy through involvement of elected representatives at the local level. This may help bring planning decisions closer to the communities and stakeholders that they impact.
A coordinated and long-term approach
The current and future challenges facing the water sector require more coordination of long-term objectives to offset risk and build up resilience. For example, future water legislation could seek to emulate existing co-ordinated and integrated models such as Scotland’s statutory development plan.
This comprises of the National Planning Framework, Local Development Plans, Local Place Plans and relates to Regional Spatial Strategies and provides an example of how a legislative and policy framework can be used to address planning at a national, regional and local scale.
A coordinated approach is also provided by river basin management plans (RBMPs) produced by SEPA on behalf of the Scottish Government. However, the legislation underpinning RBMPs is focussed on water quality and ecological status rather than water quantity and scarcity.
Scottish Water, SEPA, and Local Authorities have limited budgets to achieve challenging and competing objectives. The Integrated Water Management Plan from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority provides an example of how development planning can be used to combine multiple dispersed budgets to achieve agreed water objectives, whilst supporting regional resilience.
In a Scottish context, local authorities and public bodies could provide a platform to achieve this level of integration with national bodies such as Scottish Water and SEPA.
There was no reference to water and wastewater services in the 2025/26 Programme for Government. However, the water resource challenges already witnessed in 2025 have emphasised why reform of water legislation must remain a political priority.
Rural and island Scotland face distinct challenges related to private water supplies and wastewater treatment systems. Water, wastewater and drainage challenges in the context of rural and island Scotland are further explored in part three of this blog series.
Dr Elizabeth Lawson, SPICe Academic Fellow, Newcastle University
Title image: Low water levels at Backwater reservoir, north west Angus, August 2025. Credit: Scottish Water