ScotWind’s £755 Million Bet Still Lacks Public Proof

Audit Scotland said on 17 September 2026 that Scotland still cannot show whether ScotWind will deliver value for money. The watchdog judged a high-risk 2022 seabed auction whose option fees have already been drawn to support the budget, while the factories those bids were meant to underwrite were never used to pick the winners.

Auditor General Stephen Boyle put the test in the coming years, not in the original press release. Developers still hold ten-year options. Two of those options have already come back.

Scotland Still Cannot Prove the 2022 Auction Paid Off

Boyle’s report, Management of the ScotWind leasing round: How the Scottish Government is using offshore wind funding, is the first full public audit of the round. He said the Scottish Government needs to be more transparent about how it will use £755 million raised from option fees. That cash sits with Crown Estate Scotland on short deposits, ready for ministers to draw.

Crown Estate Scotland and the Scottish Government took a high risk and reward approach to the ScotWind leasing round. Whether that decision represents value for money will be determined in the coming years.

Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, 17 September 2026

He posted the same verdict the morning the report landed.

@scotgov needs to be clearer about how it will use £755 million raised by ScotWind.

Whether the high risk and reward approach to the offshore wind leasing round represents value for money will be determined in the coming years.

1/2 pic.twitter.com/LC8wKBgoTj

— Stephen Boyle (@AuditorGenScot) September 17, 2026

If developers convert options into long-term leases before those options expire, Boyle said annual payments would benefit Scotland for the next 60 years. If they walk away, the capped pricing model leaves limited wider economic benefits and substantially reduced public revenues. The first half of that sentence is still a forecast. The second half has already had two working examples.

Think tank Future Economy Scotland said the findings echo shortcomings it had already set out on the round. The sharper split in the public argument is not that echo. It is that Boyle left the 2022 price cap as an open bet and aimed the hard language at what happened to the money afterward.

Why the Seabed Auction Capped the Price

ScotWind was the first offshore wind leasing round in Scottish waters for a decade. Crown Estate Scotland ran it. The body records 20 projects securing seabed option agreements in 2022, for 27.6 GW of potential capacity, after 74 applications.

Seventeen offers went out in January 2022 and were signed in April. A clearing round then added three floating sites east of Shetland, signed in November. Option fees from the first batch were £699.2 million. Clearing added £56 million. Audit Scotland treats the pot as £755 million.

The price was capped at £100,000 per square kilometre. Crown Estate Scotland chose bids it judged credible rather than running an open-price sale of the sort used south of the border. A 2021 rapid review sat behind that choice after the rest of the UK showed what uncapped bidding could raise. Audit Scotland found no single business case for the round as a whole. The stated aim was to keep projects alive long enough to collect decades of lease payments, not to maximise the cheque in 2022.

THE SCOTWIND CLOCK

1. January to July 2021: Application window opens and closes.
2. January 2022: Seventeen option agreements offered, later signed in April.
3. August to November 2022: Clearing round offers and signs three more sites.
4. 2022/23: Ministers draw £96 million of the fees.
5. November 2025: Shell returns the CampionWind option.
6. March 2026: Ocean Winds relinquishes Arven South.
7. 17 September 2026: Boyle publishes the leasing-round audit.

Those option agreements last ten years. Lease payments on the far side of that window, Crown Estate Scotland and the wider industry have forecast, fall in a range of £3 million to £4 million per GW per year. Energy minister Stephen Gethins puts the same idea as £80 million to £110 million a year across a 60-year life. That range only holds if the pipeline is built.

£96 Million Already Went Into Day-to-Day Spending

The fees were sold as a net-zero windfall. The one confirmed drawdown went into the fiscal gap of 2022/23. A Scottish Government FOI released on 24 September 2025 said the £96 million spent to date was used to support the overall fiscal position, against pressures set out in the Emergency Budget Review in autumn 2022.

Boyle told Radio Scotland Breakfast that the money had originally been intended to support environmental or climate activity. “But what we have seen over the past few years is the monies have been used instead to support the Scottish government balancing its budget,” he said. He wants that trail set out, including what the spend is supposed to achieve.

THE OPTION FEES AS THE AUDITOR COUNTED THEM

Holding the cash on 12-month terms gives Holyrood maximum access to balance the books. Audit Scotland says that choice has limited Crown Estate Scotland’s own investment options and financial returns. Using a one-off leasing receipt to open a budget year in a non-recurring balanced position, the report warns, can weaken control of the day-to-day numbers that have to be found again the year after.

Gethins said the £96 million was a “one-off”. He also said an extra £65 million has come in from the separate Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas leasing round, and that the funds have accrued interest of almost £100 million. None of that interest trail is itemised in public as a net-zero programme. Opposition parties say a promised ScotWind wealth fund has been replaced by a plug for ordinary spending. The auditor does not use that phrase. He says the remaining plan, including how a wealth fund would work, has not been set out.

Supply Chain Statements Never Chose the Winners

The industrial half of the 2022 bargain was meant to live in Supply Chain Development Statements. Developers had to say where they expected to spend, in Scotland, the rest of the UK, the EU and elsewhere, across development, manufacturing, installation and operations. Gethins said Boyle’s report points to £29.1 billion of supply-chain commitments so far.

Those statements were not a scoring tool. Crown Estate Scotland’s own SCDS summary says the not influenced by the level of commitment rule applied at award: “The selection of successful applications to ScotWind Leasing is not influenced by the level of commitment or ambition provided in the initial SCDS.” Audit Scotland found the statements were not fully evaluated as part of the leasing decisions, because officials judged the information not robust enough to accept or reject a bid.

The stick that remains is small beside the option fees. Achievement is tested in 16 cells, four stages by four geographies. The worst cell sets the remedy. Missing a Scottish manufacturing line can cost a few hundred thousand pounds, or, at the floor, block a lease request. It does not reopen the 2022 award.

THE PENALTIES FOR MISSING SUPPLY CHAIN COMMITMENTS

• Full delivery: 100% or more of the committed spend in each test cell brings no remedy.
• Small miss: 90% or more, but under 100%, costs the applicant £50,000.
• Wide miss: 50% or more, but under 90%, costs £100,000.
• Severe miss: 25% or more, but under 50%, costs £250,000.
• Floor: Under 25% in any of the 16 cells, and the lease may not be requested.

Boyle wants the supply-chain test strengthened in future rounds, including a larger role in bid scoring and a look at those contractual remedies. A BP-scale option fee in 2022 ran to £85.9 million. A £250,000 charge sits in a different order of magnitude. The public was told the SCDS would keep Scottish yards in the picture. The award process treated it as colour, not as a gate.

CampionWind Came Back, Then Arven South

Boyle’s warning about developers giving up options is no longer hypothetical. In November 2025 Shell returned the CampionWind option, a 3 GW floating site about 100 kilometres off Aberdeenshire, after a share swap with ScottishPower Renewables. ScottishPower took full control of MarramWind. Shell took CampionWind, then handed the lease option back.

A Shell spokesperson said: “After a comprehensive review and in line with Shell’s previously announced refocusing of its power strategy on leveraging Shell’s strengths in trading and retailing, the conclusion was to not take the CampionWind project forward.” Crown Estate Scotland called changes of ownership a normal feature of offshore wind development and said it would assess options for the site against market demand and best value for Scotland.

In March 2026 Ocean Winds moved to relinquish Arven South, a 500 MW Shetland clearing site, over grid charging and other viability concerns. Two returned options do not unwind 20 awards. They do show the 2022 design working as designed: an option is a right, not a build. The capped fee stays in the public pot. The 60-year rent, and the Scottish spend attached to that site, do not.

Projects that remain are still filing consents. Ocean Winds has approval to take the 2 GW Caledonia scheme toward a construction start around 2030. ScottishPower has filed MachairWind. Those files are the other half of Boyle’s bet. They are also still paper.

The Wealth Fund Still Has No Operating Rules

Gethins called ScotWind a success story of jobs, investment and clean power. He said the auditor’s figures on annual income and supply-chain commitments “vindicate the decision to focus on project delivery and attracting investment, rather than upfront revenues.” He restated a pledge to establish a ScotWind Wealth Fund during this parliament, “to ensure future generations benefit from Scotland’s renewable wealth,” and said clarity would keep coming through the annual budget.

Boyle is asking for that clarity now, not at the next Budget. He wants the purpose and operation of any wealth fund on the table as ministers’ plans develop, and a public account of how remaining ScotWind funds will be used across this parliamentary term and beyond. The SNP spent the spring of 2026 advertising that fund as long-term energy and financial security. The first £96 million has already been through a budget review. The rest is still a drawdown schedule.

WHERE THE TWO READINGS SPLIT

• Stephen Boyle: The 2022 model is high risk and high reward, and value for money is still ahead of Scotland, not behind it.
• Stephen Gethins: The same report, in his reading, backs a choice to chase delivery and long-term rent over a larger cheque in 2022.
• Future Economy Scotland: The audit confirms problems it had already listed; sharing the wealth still needs more than option fees in the budget.

The 2022 round did what it was built to do on volume. It put 20 options on the books and £755 million in the door, without an open-price fight. Four years later the state cannot show how the first slice served the climate purpose it was given, cannot say how the next £507 million will, and cannot yet count the 60-year rents that were the point of the cap. CampionWind and Arven South are the early returns on that open bet. The rest of the pipeline still has to be built before anyone can close it.