In early August, Ofwat published the findings of an independent Steering Group which had examined the way Ofwat had carried out its 2004 review of price limit: for water and sewerage companies in England and Wales. The Group had been charged with considering th suitability and integrity of the process, as well as seeking stakeholders' views as to its effectiveness and offering suggestions for improvement. Overall, there was praise for the review, which even critics believed was a major improvement on earlier exercises. Naturally, various stakeholders fought their own corner. The Environment Agency felt that Ofwat treated environmental improvements as optional investments -rather than integral parts of company investment programs - making such improvements subject to disproportionate scrutiny whilst exaggerating the contribution of the environmental program to bill increases. The Agency and other environmental groups were also concerned over what they saw as the tendency of companies to bid up costs for environmental schemes through gaming. And the water companies considered that whilst Ofwat was generally open and transparent in relation to the methodologies it deployed, this was not the case in relation to the issues of efficiency and capital maintenance.
展开▼
