A Scottish Government quango spent £175,000 on ‘coaching’ for its bosses in two years, despite a stretched budget and questions over its performance.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) spent an average of £7,000 a month on executive coaching between 2022 and 2024, a freedom of information request has shown.
The money was splashed out on sessions delivered by an Edinburgh-based firm called Discovery Coaching Limited.
It is run by Jonathan Frost, a consultant who has authored books on business including ‘When Zebras Discover Motorbikes’ about how to “influence people, situations and results”.
Politicians have branded the spending by the green watchdog “absurd” and said it was a “prime example of the SNP’s bloated and wasteful quango culture”.
Sepa said its spending on coaching reflects its commitment to “continuous improvement” and had gone through the appropriate tender process.
The money has all been spent since Nicole Paterson took over as Sepa’s chief executive in late 2022.
At a time when Scotland is seeing tens of thousands of sewage dumping incidents every year, Nicole Paterson should set out exactly what performance benefits the public are seeing for their £175,000.
Alex Cole Hamilton, Scottish Liberal Democrats
It paid for over 40 members of Sepa’s “wider leadership cohort” to take part in “leadership development work”, the freedom of information response notes.
Paterson herself is paid over £125,000 a year and is one of five senior staff members on a six-figure salary.
Discovery Coaching lists big businesses among its clients, including Scottish Power and Edinburgh Airport.
Jonathan Frost claims to have worked with “literally hundreds of managers and directors” and coined the term ‘thinknosis’- the practice of “guiding people into a state of deeper thought, focus and concentration”.
Sepa has faced criticism over its performance including for failing to seek prosecutions of those who have broken environmental rules.
Prosecutions of polluters after reports by the regulator dropped from 18 a year to zero between 2014 and 2023. That’s despite the number of complaints about pollution by the public rising over that period.
Sepa has seen its budget shrink by more than a quarter in real terms since 2010, analysis by The Ferret has found.
The leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Alex Cole Hamilton, told The Ferret that while public sector organisations need to “invest in skills and training” the amount spent on the coaching looked “absurd”.
He added: “Taxpayers will be wondering whether Sepa is letting senior staff pad their CVs or whether it simply hired poorly in the first place.
“At a time when Scotland is seeing tens of thousands of sewage dumping incidents every year, Nicole Paterson should set out exactly what performance benefits the public are seeing for their £175,000.”
The Scottish Labour MSP, Monica Lennon, claimed “extravagant spending on senior executives while frontline staff, the public and the environment get left behind has become too common under the SNP”.
Lennon added: “Ultimately, Scotland’s environment watchdog must stand up to the big polluters wrecking our environment and that can only happen if the SNP’s budget is fair and Sepa’s leadership spends it wisely.”
Scottish Conservatives finance spokesperson, Craig Hoy MSP, claimed the public would be “rightly angry” to be paying for coaching for senior executives.
Hoy said: “This is a prime example of the SNP’s bloated and wasteful quango culture.”
This is a prime example of the SNP’s bloated and wasteful quango culture.
Craig Hoy MSP, Scottish Conservatives
A spokesperson for Sepa noted a programme to “enhance leadership capability and capacity” was agreed as part of its “organisational reset” in 2023 and paid for by “savings” within the leadership team.
They added: “Like other public bodies, investing in leadership coaching reflects our commitment to continuous improvement and delivery of high-quality public services.
“As our services transform to protect and support Scotland’s environment it is key we ensure the senior leaders in Sepa are highly skilled, professional and engaged public service leaders.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said “It is the responsibility of all public sector bodies to ensure they are as efficient and effective as possible while delivering value for money for the taxpayer.”
Discovery Coaching was asked to comment.
Given the terrible performance of SEP over the past decade and more, I’m sure the SEPA executives do need significant management coaching. However what was the real purpose of the coaching? Was it how to answer awkward questions, or defend the indefensible? It should have been how to make SEPA work effectively as the Scottish environment watchdog and get real results, quickly.
I suspect it was mainly the former.
The dirt is in the detail. “Sepa has seen its budget shrink by more than a quarter in real terms since 2010, analysis by The Ferret has found.”
Another Government Agency being neutered through the back door while Scot Gov claims it’s doing everything it can for net zero and the environment.
There are a lot of good people at SEPA who work hard for Scotland and believe in what we do. What we are supposed to be doing at least.
I get that this stuff leaves a sour taste with the public. It does for us too.
The “regular” SEPA staff have cut to the bone, been asked to continually do more with less and for their pains received next to nothing in training for well over a decade now. The organisation has been taken over by what amounts to little more than a cult with little regulatory experience or understanding of what SEPA is there for who speak in platitudes so far away from “plain English” as to be unintelligible! Embarrassing stuff indeed! They still regularly blame their cyber-attack for all shortcomings even though that was in 2020 under previous regime!
With two former Big Oil “executives” already on its board, what better way to safeguard Scotland’s environment than to hire an aviation lobbyist?
Who needs SEPA anyway, when dimwit MSPs on Rural Affairs Committee stubbornly refuse to call time on four decades of destructive salmon farming?
Get the chainsaws out.