OUR BIODIVERSITY DUTY
The Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS) has a statutory duty to further the conservation of biodiversity when carrying out its responsibilities. This duty is set out in the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act (2004).
As a Scottish public body we are also required under the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act (2011) to provide a publicly available report on our compliance with our biodiversity duty.
We are required to publish the report every three years and it should demonstrate the actions we have taken to meet our duty.
Our role
WICS was formed on 1 July 2005 under the Water Services etc. (Scotland) Act 2005. We are a small non-departmental government body.
In summary, our statutory duties are to:
- promote the interests of Scottish Water’s customers and, in so doing, to have regard to the interests of future customers;
- ensure that customer charges reflect the lowest reasonable overall cost for Scottish Water to deliver the Scottish Ministers’ Objectives for the industry;
- comment on Scottish Water’s reporting of its performance, challenging Scottish Water to become more efficient and sustainable;
- facilitate the entry of retail water and sewerage providers that wish to supply non-household customers in Scotland; and
- support the Scottish Government’s vision of ensuring that Scotland is a Hydro Nation, and to meet our obligations under the Water Resource Act 2013.