Scottish Water is to adopt an award-winning model for partnership working to deliver billions of pounds worth of capital investment.
Its £500million Improving Urban Waters programme has been named ‘Partnership of the Year’ at the Water Industry Awards for its innovative and integrated approach.
Now, the publicly owned utility is set to use the same model to deliver up to £9billion of investment to transform Scotland’s public assets to keep taps flowing and protect the environment.
Scottish Water Alliance Manager Lynsey Lennon said: “Our Improving Urban Waters programme committed us to delivering over 100 projects in less than five years.
“We decided to take a combined approach, bringing together our team members with our alliance partner, modellers, designers and survey partners into one integrated team.
Scottish Water is carrying out its largest ever procurement process, inviting firms to bid to be involved in an enterprise-style programme
“The result is we are getting projects to site in a third of the time that it took in the past, and that achievement has been recognised.”
Scottish Water is carrying out its largest ever procurement process, inviting firms to bid to be involved in an enterprise-style programme – known as Delivery Vehicle 4 – between 2027 and 2033 and potentially for a further six years.
It is anticipated the total investment – known as SR27 - of between £5billion and £9billion will support around 4000 jobs and create opportunities for 1500 young people.
Lynsey Lennon added: “These are exciting times for Scottish Water and our partners and a real opportunity to bring great value for customers as we invest their money in our futures.
“Innovation is key, not only in the technologies and materials we use, but in our approach to how we bring together the expertise, know-how and processes to deliver real benefits.
“We had already started to apply elements of our experience with the Improving Urban Waters model to other programmes of work, and we will see much more of this way of working in the next investment period.”
Scottish Water’s Improving Urban Waters team includes Caledonia Water Alliance, modellers and designers at M2 and ARC and survey partner Clancy.
