Full Description

The water industry of England and Wales was privatized in November 1989. Before that, the industry had been radically re-organized in 1974 when local municipalities had been relieved of the responsibility for provision of potable water and sanitation by the central government. In place of the fragmented municipal authorities, ten regional water authorities were established covering England and Wales with boundaries drawn to match the boundaries of the catchment areas of major rivers. Thus for the first time, authorities were established who were responsible for both the provision of potable water and the consequences of sewage treatment on downstream communities. As a result of the privatization in 1989, the responsibilities of water authorities were revised, and regulatory bodies were established to monitor and control the activities of the new water companies. Three separate regulatory bodies were established: the Office of Water Services, responsible for the economic regulation of the industry, including comparative performance assessment and definition of customer service levels; the Drinking Water Inspectorate, responsible for enforcing drinking water quality legislation and monitoring the quality performance of the water companies in respect of provision of drinking water services to their customers; the Environment Agency (initially the National Rivers Authority) responsible for granting of licences for water abstraction, setting of consents (permits) for discharges from sewage works and sewer overflows, and overall monitoring of environmental performance. The Scottish Water Industry was excluded from both the 1974 re-organization and the 1989 privatization. This was for political reasons, but the benefits arising from the existence of specialist water authorities led to a re-organization of the Scottish Industry in the late 1990s. The benefit of having separate regulators was also apparent and therefore, independent regulators were appointed to cover drinking water, environmental protection, and economic regulation. Includes tables, appendices.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 06/01/2001 Number of Pages: 10File Size: 1 file , 380 KB