It's not an easy sell for one of Britain's leading utilities: a strong or at least "solid" profits signal, along with a warning of those gas bills back on the rise again.

Utilities are easy targets for squeezed customers and tabloid headline writers. But Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy, is unapologetic.

Profit expectations are strongly up, yes - but that's after they took a dive.

He's talking about the forward price for gas on the rise over the next two winters, and it's not looking pretty.

Engagingly bluff, he's also talking about looking for gas assets in the North Sea to secure supply for his nine million customers.

But the most striking message from Ian Marchant, when I spoke to him earlier today, is that he's unhappy about his customers' misuse of the product he sells them.

"I'm fed up with people wasting so much of the stuff I sell them," he says.

Most CEOs would be delighted at customers wasting their output and coming back for more.

Colman's Mustard is famous for building a family fortune on the condiment politely left on the side of plates.

But this is the topsy-turvy world of utilities; largely recession-proofed, on a renewables investment roll, and where companies are under tough regulatory requirements to cajole and incentivise their customers into cutting down on energy use.

Amid the big numbers from SSE today, I reckon the most striking is that the drive to cut gas usage is saving customers an average of £120 per year, or 15% on bills.

For those already watching their smart meters, that's 670 therms down to 550 over a sustained reduction of usage over three years.

That's not just the effect of sharply raised prices over the past 18 months, claims Marchant.

"That's the condensing boiler, loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, people looking at the thermostat and their timer.

"When last did you check your thermostat and time clock?" he asks.

No time to answer before getting a glimpse of life in the Marchant household, where Mrs M last week demanded a review of its heating arrangements, with the clock duly adjusted and gas use reduced.

"That's not price-driven," says the CEO of Scotland's second biggest company. "I'd say it was wife-driven."

Forecasts for the rising price of gas are based on the forward wholesale price.

Now, you can buy a therm for 30 pence. Next summer, it is selling for around 35 pence, even though summer demand is much lower than November.

Next winter, it's at 50 pence, and the winter after that at 57 pence.

SSE's long term supply contracts run out between 2011 and 2013, which is why he wants to lock in security of supply beyond that.

He's been looking at gas assets in the North Sea, just as Centrica was doing when it bought Venture Production.

He's less likely to buy a company than to buy gas fields from an offshore operator wanting to release asset capital for further exploration.

But he hasn't found the right one yet.

Even more contrary is a utility boss asking for toughened regulation than the government now plans.

This has to do with carbon capture and storage (CCS) of emissions from coal-burning power plants.

SSE is planning a £21m trial of new CCS technology in Ferrybridge, Yorkshire, to add to its work with Babcock Dooson in Renfrewshire, on burning coal for pure carbon dioxide capture.

It agrees with the government announcement this week that that new coal-burning plants must be built with all their emissions subject to CCS.

But it says the government doesn't go far enough. SSE wants all coal-burners, including existing ones, to have all their emissions captured and stored after 2030.

The attraction is a level playing field, but it's also explained by SSE (as with Scottish Power/Iberdrola) investing in CCS technology.

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It's a week that Stephen Hester will be happy to put behind him.

The chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland has announced 3,700 job losses from branches and the need for at least £25bn more in government capital injection, taking the taxpayers' share of economic value (though not voting power) up to 84%.

He was told by the European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes to sell large parts of RBS, which he points out this morning cost the UK taxpayer £9bn this week alone in the reduced stock market valuation of our stake.

And now there's a third quarter pre-tax loss of more than £2.1bn, or (as RBS prefers to emphasise) an operating loss of £1.5bn, sharply reduced from the second quarter. Impairments, or losses on loans, seem to be at a plateau, but it's a high one, at £3.3bn for the third quarter.

No huge surprises to any of this. But there's an interesting new message from the RBS chief executive, as he admits the bank is struggling to hit the government's demands for ensuring lending is available to homebuyers and businesses.

He's now pointing out that companies - his customers - are choosing to repair their balance sheets, and that means reducing the level of debt they're carrying. And he points out that's the way it should be.

The USA is out of recession, while companies are paying off debt faster than they're doing in Britain and savings are up. So pushing more credit into the economy may not be the way back to growth, and probably isn't good for us anyway.

There's a new figure from the bank that helps explain what's going on, suggesting the problem in reaching the lending targets is not the lack of willingness from banks, but the lack of demand from customers.

RBS has identified £27bn of credit available to its small, medium and "mid-corporate" customers through arranged overdrafts, which is available, easily accessed, but not being drawn down.

This looks like a big hint to Chancellor Alistair Darling, RBS's majority shareholder: time to re-think those lending targets.

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"Extremely bleak", says the First Minister of Scotland's public spending prospects.

Alex Salmond today sought to draw a distinction between cuts from either Labour or Conservative governments after the next election, and on the other hand... well, that's less clear.

But expect to hear lots more about the cost of renewing Britain's nuclear deterrent, and what could be done with that money instead.

This was brought on by the report by auditor general on Scotland's spending choices. Robert Black wasn't telling us anything startlingly new - not, at least, to readers of The Ledger.

But his advice carries rather more weight than this or any blog. And you could sense from First Minister's questions at Holyrood that its publication crystallised a definite shift of tone and direction for Scottish politics.

It makes it more difficult for efficiency savings to be used as an avoidance mechanism for difficult political decisions. Robert Black noted that the efficiency savings are being achieved, but they don't go far enough.

And he pointed out that there's still much we don't know about productivity in the public sector - the link between spending, activities, performance and outcomes - without which it's hard to see where and how to improve it.

So the new battleground is in answer to the question of what government should and should not - what it can and cannot - continue to fund for everyone. What should it abandon completely, and where should it means test or target?

Pensions challenge

How, asks Robert Black, will decisions be made between competing priorities, and what will success look like in public service delivery?

Where would it be better to spend now to deliver recurring savings in the future? Have we got the balance right between long- and short-term changes?

Are public service managers doing enough to break down barriers between them, and working in partnerships? Do we have to reshape the organisations themselves, starting with councils, health boards, police and fire boards?

What, continues the Audit Scotland report, are the implications of an ageing workforce for the staffing of front-line services? That's not talking about the cost of more elderly people with growing health demands, but a question that gets at the difficult issue of public sector pensions.

And here's a tricky question, cannily worded: "Does the public sector have a sufficiently flexible workforce to allow jobs to be changed? Is there a need for skills development and an improved understanding with the unions and staff about the needs and opportunities for re-designing how services are provided?"

Those words represent a can of worms for public sector unions, while carefully avoiding talk of job cuts. It holds out the opportunity for service reform without the provocative challenge of a target for slimming the public sector.

Intensive care

Scotland is not alone in facing this question, of course. The rest of Britain has been slow to reach a consensus around the reality of looming public sector spending cuts, but it is ahead of Scotland in its appreciation of the choice between universal and targeted spending - or at least the consequences of the universal approach which has been Holyrood's default for a decade.

And two neighbours are facing language about cuts that is much more brutal than Robert Black's.

Ireland has just been told by the OECD (rich country's economic club) that its problems are likely to require a return to student fees, bigger class sizes, cuts in civil service jobs as well as in civil service salaries.

On Thursday, the finance minister confirmed the country remains "stable, in intensive care" with credit rating agencies bearing down on Dublin. Ahead of a budget in December, the Prime Minister has said public sector pay cuts are inevitable.

Manx advantage

And the Isle of Man has recently been shocked by the imposition of a sudden shift in its tax position, as the Treasury in London sharply reduces its hand-back of VAT receipts.

The island's government budget is being cut by 10% next year and by 24% within two years, without much sympathy from Chancellor Alistair Darling, who sees it as a tax haven.

There may be lessons for Scotland from the middle of the Irish Sea on how to handle big cuts.

But there's another lesson for those hoping to design a change in Holyrood's tax powers: if the Isle of Man is any guide, don't assume the Treasury will help making the transition a smooth one.

That's particularly for those, like the Manx, who use corporation tax to give themselves competitive advantage - precisely the preference of quite a few people in the debate over Scottish constitutional powers.

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