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British privatization: balancing needs
Author(s) -
Booker Alan
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal ‐ american water works association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1551-8833
pISSN - 0003-150X
DOI - 10.1002/j.1551-8833.1994.tb06166.x
Subject(s) - competition (biology) , business , monopoly , balance (ability) , activity based costing , reset (finance) , water industry , government (linguistics) , service (business) , finance , market economy , industrial organization , economics , marketing , water supply , engineering , medicine , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , environmental engineering , physical medicine and rehabilitation , biology
The UK's Office of Water Services—OFWAT—is pursuing a “transparent” regulatory style as it attempts to balance monopoly, competition, and customer service in Britain's privatized water companies. In the United Kingdom, OFWAT (the Office of Water Services) is responsible for economic regulation of the 10 water service companies privatized in 1989 by the British government. OFWAT's interrelated functions include protecting customers' pocketbooks, promoting economy and efficiency of the water companies, and acting as a surrogate marketplace to facilitate competition. The main control OFWAT can exercise is to limit the prices companies can charge to their customers. Because of tougher standards, costs are rising, sometimes to levels difficult for low‐income people to manage. Affordability is a prime concern to be considered when costing formulas, reset every five years, are reset in July 1994.