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A new regulatory framework for the Victorian water industry

The Australian state of Victoria will be implementing a new water pricing framework for the
next regulatory price review in 2018. The framework will apply to 16 of the State’s urban
water businesses and Southern Rural Water.
In May 2016, the Essential Services Commission (ESC), Victoria’s economic regulator,
released a position paper setting out a proposed, new pricing approach and invited
submissions on its proposal.3 Based on feedback received through this consultation process,
the ESC released a final report in October 2016 that sets out the water pricing framework and
approach that is to be implemented from 2018.4

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March 1, 2017
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Documents

Energy and environmental policy: the GB experience A Report for the Australian Energy Market Commission

This Report provides an account of the development of GB energy and environmental policies over recent decades, with a focus on the extent to which they have worked together to bring about best-feasible trade-offs between major policy objectives such as reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and promotion of the long-term interests of energy consumers

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February 28, 2017
Documents

The emergence of new issues

Delivered as part of ‘The evolution of UK regulatory policy in retrospect: What has worked well? What hasn’t? What can be learned from experience?’, Annual Competition and Regulation Conference 2016

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September 19, 2016
Documents

25 Years of regulation: Water services

Delivered as part of ‘The evolution of UK regulatory policy in retrospect: What has worked well? What hasn’t? What can be learned from experience?’, Annual Competition and Regulation Conference 2016

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September 12, 2016
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Documents

The market for residency in Fabellia: a quick introduction

In discourse following the UK referendum on 23 June 2016 significant attention has been paid
to the question What does Brexit mean? The answer seems to be straightforward: it means
UK exit from the EU, which requires UK withdrawal from the EU Treaty.
A much more important and challenging question is What next? Central to evaluation of the
options available is another question, a question about the meaning of words: What does the
expression free movement of persons mean? Put more specifically: What conditions need to
be satisfied in order to be able to say that free movement of persons has been established?

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September 1, 2016
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Essays in Regulation

Brexit and the single market

The UK is currently a Contracting Party to the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement, and exit from the EU does not necessarily imply exit from the Single Market (i.e. withdrawal from the Agreement). Exit from the EEA would require that extra steps be taken, either unilaterally by the UK or by the other Contracting Parties to the Agreement.
There is no explicit provision in the Agreement for the UK to cease to be a Contracting Party other than by unilateral, voluntary withdrawal, which requires simply the giving of twelve months’ notice in writing (Article 127). A commonly held assumption that only EU and EFTA members can be Parties to the EEA Agreement – and hence that the UK has to be a member of one or other of these two organisations to be in the Single Market – is not well grounded, although UK consideration of an application for EFTA membership is an option well worth exploring in its own right.

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July 1, 2016
Research Reports

The provision of nutrition supply services: an assessment of current NHS procurement arrangements in England (A report for Abbott Laboratories Ltd)

This Report evaluates current National Health Service procurement arrangements for nutritional supply services in England. The principal focus is on contractual procurement of these services in the secondary care sector, but, since the economic effects of the secondary sector arrangements and their implications for the NHS depend crucially on how they function alongside primary care arrangements, it is necessary also to take account of the latter. Specifically, the assessment takes particular account of the economic linkages between procurement decisions in the two sectors, which give rise to a number of important issues and questions.

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October 1, 2015
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Letters and Notes

Privatisation and untoward consequences in water services: the regulator’s role

Privatisation and untoward consequences in water services: the regulator’s role
Utilities were privatised:-
to enable them to finance investment outside public expenditure controls,
to improve choice for customers through greater competition, and
to harness private enterprise to increase efficiency through incentive regulation.
A regulator (Ofwat) was appointed, independent of Ministers, with statutory duties to secure
that regulated companies carry out their legal duties, and can finance them, and to protect
customers from abuse of monopoly power.

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October 1, 2015