Record Attendance at Annual EGA Lecture on Water Regulation

There was a record attendance at the UCD EGA Annual Lecture last Wednesday evening. We were honoured that Regina Finn Chief Executive of OFWAT Water Regulator for England and Wales agreed to give this year's lecture. No doubt that the subject matter of the lecture on the regulation of water utilities and the quality of the speaker drew the very large crowd to the Clinton Auditorium on the UCD Campus.

Regina gave a fascinating account of setting up OFWAT as CEO in 2006. The England and Wales solution to the regulation of water was the attraction of private sector expertise management and capital coupled with the setting of environmental and quality standards and the protection of consumers from monopoly power.

Regina Finn giving her lecture.

She set about addressing regulation of 20 regional monopolies in an industry with a turnover of more than £10.5 billion. The water companies had been privatised in 1989.

There has been a lot of success in water regulation to date. Leakage has fallen by 40% since 1995. £108 billion has been invested and customer bills are 30% lower in England and Wales than they would have been. The water network is functioning better and environmental quality has improved especially with over 100 Blue Flag beaches and fish have reappeared in the River Thames again.

Most important of all, customer service is significantly better with a 99% reduction in the risk of customers experiencing low water pressure.

New challenges facing OFWAT are climate change causing more droughts and floods, the need for more flexible transfer arrangement between regions with water surplus to those with scarcity. There are also challenges with the tough economic climate and falling incomes, a growing UK population, over-abstraction and increasing environmental challenges required an extra £100 billion to meet the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive.

OFWAT stakeholder opinion surveys show a greater confidence in the need for regulation from larger business and least from the domestic consumers. There is obviously less possibility for  cost efficiency gains in more recent years as the early gains were 'the low lying fruit'. In addition, sustainability remains a major challenge in social environmental and economic terms.

Three former Presidents of Engineers Ireland - John McGowan, Liam Connellan, Michael Higgins, listen intently to Regina's presentation

After her presentation (which will be posted on this website next week) there were many and varied questions from the audience ranging from the challenge of sustainability, how OFWAT deal with customers who don't pay their bills and universal metering only (50% of all customers are metered). The issue of a possible 'generous free allowance' to domestic customers was raised in England and Wales in terms of adverse customer reaction. Also raised was the variability of charges across the regions.

Regina revealed that UK legislation is weak in dealing with customers who don't pay their charges. On metering I think her best quote of the night (look out some Irish politicians!) was that 'metering is the fairest way to charge for water'.

UCD Dean of Engineering, Gerry Byrne, Regina Finn, UCD EGA President PJ Rudden, UCD Deputy President Mark Rogers at the UCD EGA Annual Lecture 2013

The very large attendance including senior officials of Irish Water, the local authorities, Environmental Protection Agency, Commission for Energy Regulation, semi-state bodies, National Treasury Management Agency,  Chambers Ireland, Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the Construction Industry Federation, ICTU, leading consulting engineers and contractors, legal and financial consultants.

EGA Board Members with Regina Finn - Sean Murphy, Robyn Kelly, Angela Treanor and P J Rudden

The feedback messages and emails from those who attended felt it was an excellent discussion and debate on a hugely important national topic. Water is after all the most important food we produce as a nation and water deficiencies can have very serious social, commercial, industrial and public health consequences. Thus the huge focus on this in the political world as the new utility Irish Water is set up.

We wish to sincerely thank Regina - a Dublin native - for coming from London to give the lecture and to the very large attendance who came to UCD to show their interest.