Scotland’s water system is entering a new six year settlement that will shape bills, infrastructure, private contracts and industrial access from 2027. Scotland needs to fight to keep real control over its water, as money and decisions moving through it.
Scotland is not short of water. Scotland is short of public understanding about what may happen to it next.
That is not the fault of ordinary people. Scots are busy with jobs, families, bills, ageing relatives, rising food costs and enough public documents to wallpaper their homes. They do not have time to read every regulatory consultation, procurement notice, ministerial letter, company announcement and planning paper. Yet this is precisely where Scotland’s water future is now being shaped.
The simple story is this. Scottish Water remains publicly owned. That is the crucial difference between Scotland and England and Wales, where the water industry was privatised in 1989. In Scotland, the water company itself has not been sold. There is no current evidence of a live Bill that openly privatises Scottish Water. That must be said plainly.
But public ownership on paper is not the same thing as public control in practice.
Scotland’s water system is entering a new six year regulatory and charging period. The current period ends on 31 March 2027. The next one begins on 1 April 2027 and runs to 31 March 2033. Before that happens, the Water Industry Commission for Scotland is due to publish its draft determination on charges on 30 June 2026, with a final decision expected by the end of October 2026. Those dates are important for Scotland.
Scottish Water has proposed a £13.4 billion business plan for 2027 to 2033. The Water Industry Commission for Scotland describes the submitted investment plan as £8.1 billion. The larger figure refers to overall expenditure across the period, while the smaller figure refers to proposed investment in water and wastewater services. Either way, Scotland is looking at one of the largest water infrastructure programmes in its modern history.
Households are already under pressure. Consumer Scotland estimated that around 10.6 percent of Scottish households, about 275,000 homes, were in water poverty in 2024 to 2025. Within that group, around 120,000 households were in severe water poverty. Water poverty does not mean Scotland has no water. It means the cost of water and sewerage charges is too high for household income. A country can have lochs, reservoirs and rain and still have families unable to afford the bill.
This is where many people understandably become confused. They look out at Scotland’s rivers and hills and wonder how water poverty can exist in a wet country. The answer is that rain is not the bill. The bill pays for treatment works, pipes, reservoirs, sewers, pumping stations, monitoring, repairs, wastewater treatment, regulatory compliance, borrowing, staff, contractors and upgrades. Raw water falling from the sky is not the same thing as safe water at the tap and sewage safely removed from the home.
That does not mean the public should simply accept whatever charge increase is presented. It means the public should demand a full account.
The danger facing Scotland is not a simple version of privatisation, where a minister sells Scottish Water in a single afternoon and everyone notices. The danger is quieter. It lies in ownership restructuring, private finance, inherited PFI contracts, long term outsourcing, digital dependency, commercial subsidiaries, weak regulation, industrial demand and the gradual habit of treating public water infrastructure as a platform for private growth.
The wolves at Scotland’s door will not arrive wearing badges marked “privatisation”. But there will be wolves.
The first wolf is any future attempt to change the ownership model under softer language such as mutualisation, reform or new financing. If Scottish Water is public, it must remain public in law, finance, purpose and accountability.
The second wolf is long term private delivery. Scottish Water has confirmed seven private partner companies for its new delivery model known as The Enterprise: Stantec, AECOM, M Group Water, Mott MacDonald Bentley, Farrans, WGM Engineering and Ross Shire Engineering. This is not the sale of Scottish Water. But it is a major private delivery structure around public water infrastructure. Scots should ask what these contracts cover, how profits are made, what risks remain with the public, what work is guaranteed in Scotland and who controls the data, design, intellectual property and long term maintenance decisions.
The third wolf is private finance by habit. Scottish Water inherited PFI contracts from earlier structures. Some wastewater and sludge treatment services have been delivered through private concession arrangements. The Scottish people should know which contracts continue, which expire, which assets return to public control and whether new financing models recreate old dependencies under new names.
The fourth wolf is the regulator itself, if it fails to defend the public. The Water Industry Commission for Scotland will decide the maximum charges for the next period. Its job is not to wave through whatever is requested. It must test the proposed spending, charges and delivery model. It must show households why each increase is necessary and whether the burden is fair. If bills rise while vulnerable households are left behind, the public model will be weakened politically. That is how a system is softened up for “reform”.
The fifth wolf is industrial demand.
This is where data centres enter the water story.
Scottish Water Horizons, the commercial arm of Scottish Water, says openly that its work includes providing water for green hydrogen production and data centres. That alone deserves national attention. It does not prove that Scottish Water’s billions are being spent secretly to pipe water to server halls. It does prove that data centres and hydrogen are already inside the commercial thinking around Scotland’s water assets.
Scotland is being promoted for data centres and AI infrastructure because it has land, electricity potential, fibre routes, cooler weather and public infrastructure. The country is already being asked to consider AI growth zones, hyperscale campuses and data centre networks. These projects do not float above the land. They need sites, power, grid connections, cooling systems, water arrangements, discharge permissions, roads, substations and local consent.
Some data centres use relatively little water if they rely on closed loop systems or air based cooling. Others can use more, depending on design, location and cooling technology. The public should not accept vague assurances. Every proposal should publish its expected water demand, cooling method, wastewater discharge, peak use, emergency use, grid demand and impact on local capacity. If a developer says the water use is modest, excellent. Put the numbers on the table.
The most serious question is whether the 2027 to 2033 water investment programme will be used, directly or indirectly, to support private industrial demand.
At present, the evidence does not prove that Scottish Water’s £13.4 billion business plan, or the £8.1 billion investment plan assessed by WICS, is secretly a data centre water pipeline programme. That claim is not proven. The published case is that the money is for water and wastewater infrastructure, service resilience, ageing assets and future needs.
But the public has the right to ask a sharper question.
Which parts of the investment plan serve existing households? Which parts serve wastewater and drinking water infrastructure? Which parts support new housing? Which parts enable commercial or industrial developments? Which parts may serve hydrogen production, data centres, AI campuses or other high demand users? Will developers pay the full cost of any required upgrades, or will some costs be spread through ordinary household bills?
That is the line Scotland must hold.
There is already a visible example of the kind of issue that needs scrutiny. Scottish Water has described a potential project involving more than 20 kilometres of water pipe to serve a proposed hydrogen production plant near Edderton. That may or may not be justified. The point is that industrial water infrastructure is no longer theoretical. It is real enough to appear in project papers.
The same scrutiny must now be applied to data centres.
If a data centre needs water from Scottish Water, who pays for the connection? If it needs sewerage capacity, who pays for upgrades? If it uses water for cooling, how much will it use on a normal day and at peak demand? If it relies on closed loop cooling, who verifies that claim? If it discharges wastewater or trade effluent, who regulates it? If local capacity is limited, do households, farms and small businesses come first? If public infrastructure is expanded for private industrial use, what public benefit is guaranteed in return?
Scotland has been through this before with energy. The country hosted oil, gas, pipelines, terminals, refinery capacity and skilled work, but many of the commanding powers over licensing, taxation, ownership and strategy sat elsewhere. Now the resource map is changing. Water, electricity, land, grid access and data infrastructure are becoming valuable together. Scotland must not drift into another settlement where the country hosts the assets while control and profit sit somewhere else.
What should the Scottish public do?
First, pay attention to the dates. June 2026 is when WICS is expected to publish its draft decision on the next charging settlement. October 2026 is when the final decision is expected. 31 March 2027 is when the current period ends. 1 April 2027 is when the new six year settlement begins.
Those are the dates around which public scrutiny should gather.
Second, demand a plain public breakdown of the investment plan. Scottish Water, WICS and ministers should show how much money is for existing household service, how much is for ageing infrastructure, how much is for sewage and wastewater improvements, how much is for new development, how much is for industrial users, how much is for digital systems, and how much will flow through private delivery partners.
Third, demand protection against water poverty. No country should call its water public while poorer households are pushed deeper into difficulty to pay for infrastructure whose benefits are not clearly explained. Support must be better targeted. Households already struggling with council tax, energy, rent, mortgages, food and transport should not be treated as a convenient reservoir of revenue.
Fourth, demand that private industrial users pay their full costs. Data centres, hydrogen producers, large commercial campuses and major developers should not be quietly subsidised through household water bills. If they need capacity, they should pay for capacity. If they need new infrastructure, the public should know whether that infrastructure is for them, for households, or for both.
Fifth, watch planning applications. Data centre proposals should not be judged only on jobs and investment claims. Every application should be checked for water supply, cooling method, discharge, energy use, grid demand, land take, local benefit and emergency resilience. Communities should ask councils and SEPA for the technical details before approval, not after the machinery arrives.
Sixth, defend Scottish Water as a public asset. That means opposing any future attempt to sell it, mutualise it into a weaker model, load it with financial structures that reduce public control, or outsource so much of the system that public ownership becomes a sign on the door while private interests run the corridors.
Scotland’s water does not belong to a minister, a regulator, a contractor, a developer, a data company or a consultant with a slide deck and a fondness for the word “resilience”. It belongs to the public, and it must be governed for the public.
The task now is scrutiny.
Scotland should ask for the accounts, the contracts, the water volumes, the industrial connections, the household impact, the affordability plan, the regulator’s reasoning and the public benefit test.
If the new water settlement is truly for the people of Scotland, then the people of Scotland should be able to see it.
If it is partly being built to serve private industrial expansion, then the people of Scotland should be aware it.
