The 2021 SCDI (Scottish Council for Development and Industry) Highlands and Islands Business Excellence Awards were held on Thursday 24th June, in an online ceremony hosted by comedian/impressionist Alistair McGowan.

Aquascot were nominated for two awards on the night — The Open University in Scotland Award for SME Enterprise of the Year and the SCDI Award for Excellence in People Development — and we were truly over the moon to be awarded the Gold Award in the latter category, while picking up Bronze in the other. As a business that advocates strongly for Employee Ownership and believes investing in people to be the way forward, this has been a particularly pleasing award success, and we acknowledge the immense contribution of our partners in making it happen.

SCDI Chief Exec, Sara Thiam: "In 2016, Aquascot became 100 per cent employee owned with employees now known as partners... In order to continually improve and properly invest in their partners, the company has committed to developing as a learning organisation, aiming to build a company brand of learning and progression, so that local people, students and school leavers recognise them as a great place to learn, work and develop."

Aquascot Managing Director, John Housego: "As Sara pointed out, we are employee owned, so we don't have people, we have partners, and being a partner is at the heart of our culture. It is about helping each other grow so that we can grow as a business. I have been incredibly impressed with our team over the crisis and their ability to learn how to do things in a new way, and I am very grateful to everyone who has put the effort in this year to make a difference for us."

Huge congratulations to the other winners on the night — we were delighted to be among such distinguished and successful fellow nominees.