An examination of water governance and regulatory challenges in England and Wales related to financialisation in the water and sanitation sectors.
Most water companies in England and Wales have transitioned to ownership by private equity funds, sovereign wealth funds, and pension funds. This shift has allowed for complex financial practices and financial extraction. Regulation has been relatively slow to respond.
This working paper takes the integrity perspective and looks at transparency, power dynamics, and capacity issues driving the situation.
The England and Wales water sector faces an intractable set of problems. Huge investment is needed at a time when interest rates and inflation have increased and some firms are under financial pressure of high debts. People are struggling to pay bills with an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, and public trust in the water companies is at an all-time low. The situation in the water sector in England and Wales is described by economist Dieter Helm as one of “spectacular regulatory failure”, none of which was inevitable (Plimmer, 2023c). It is unclear how this can all be reconciled within the current structure.
WORKING PAPER
By: Kate Bayliss (SOAS) and Mary Galvin (Water Integrity Network)
Published: September 2024
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