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  • Corporate Performance Report Quarter 2 2025 to 2026

Corporate Performance Report Quarter 2 2025/26

Purpose and recommendations

This paper presents the second quarterly corporate performance report of this fiscal year, covering the period July 2025 – September 2025. This is the second year of our Corporate Plan.

In our Annual Operating Plan 2025-2026, we set out a refreshed corporate performance measurement framework. This outlined a suite of performance measures aligned to our corporate plan priorities. We will use these performance measures to assess our progress in delivering this plan throughout the year.

The Agency Board is asked to discuss and note this report (see section 3.1 for detailed recommendations).

Authors: Helen Hine, Senior Business Consultant, Performance Reporting and Planning; Darren McKay, Performance Manager; Clare Noblett, Head of Strategy and Communications.

Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) Sponsor:  Kirsty-Louise Campbell Chief Officer Governance, Performance and Engagement.

Date: 15 January 2026

1. Introduction

1.1. We introduced a revised performance measurement framework, as part of the Annual Operating Plan 2025/26 development, which strengthens where we expect to see impact in year and better quantifies what success looks like.

1.2. At the end of each quarter, we provide a corporate performance report to describe our progress towards achieving the performance measures set out in the Annual Operating Plan 2025/26. The attached report summarises our performance for quarter two.

2. Overview

2.1. We have refreshed our corporate performance report in line with our revised performance measurement framework. We now quantify and describe progress against our agreed OKRs and KPIs, aligned to each of our Corporate Plan priority themes as well as several key milestones (when relevant).

2.2. We have used good practice for reporting OKRs and have followed the principles for performance reporting set out in the Scottish Government Framework Agreement for SEPA and the Government Financial Reporting Manual (FReM). We also considered feedback from the Board Performance Champion.

2.3 We have kept this performance report concise and factual and have detailed progress over the quarter.

2.4. We will ensure all text, graphs, colours, images, and tables used in the report are accessible for publication.

2.5. Following Board feedback, we have made the following additions to the report since Q1:

  • 2.5.1. We have included an Exceptions and Recovery section in the Executive Summary to provide greater clarity where a key result is forecast to be at risk of non-delivery or partial delivery.
  • 2.5.2. We have included an assessment of confidence in the annual forecast as part of the quarterly commentary for each key result in the Performance Update.
  • 2.6. We continue to welcome Board feedback on the corporate performance reports. 

3. Recommendations

3.1. The Agency Board is asked to:

  • 3.1.1. Discuss and note the Agency’s performance against the measures set out in the Annual Operating Plan 2025/26. This includes eight key results delivered in Q2 (three ahead of schedule), and that we are forecasting partial delivery against four OKRs by the end of this year with reasons noted.  
  • 3.1.2. Discuss and note that due to risks around the delivery of OKR5 the River Basin Management Plan (RBMP3) programme of actions to improve the water environment; for OKR 5.3 we are now focusing on tracking progress across key stages in the RBMP3 programme –- scoping, in progress and complete. This means from Q2 we are now tracking 144 key actions, rather than the 153 actions originally planned and published in the Performance Measures Explained document with the Q1 report.
  • 3.1.3. Discuss and note that we achieved our key result targets for OKR9 (KR9.2 and KR9.3) by Q2 instead of Q4. In light of this progress, new increased targets of 20% are proposed for Q3 onwards to sustain momentum and drive further improvement.
  • 3.1.4. Discuss and note that for OKR10, as part of the development of SEPA's first Customer Experience Strategy, external customer research has been commissioned, with results expected by the end of this financial year. We will await the findings to inform the new digital contact methods (KR10.1) as well as target service level agreement timeframes (KR10.3). Consequently, we are proposing these key results will be paused for now and reviewed for 2026/27. We will also look to progress Customer Service Standards implementation (KR10.2) by the end of Q4 rather than Q2 to align with the broader programme timeline.

Read the Corporate Performance report for quarter 2 2025/26 (MS Word, 399 kB)