IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/crnind/v20y2019i3p218-228.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is the ideal of independent regulation appropriate? Evidence from the United Kingdom

Author

Listed:
  • Steve Thomas

    (University of Greenwich, UK)

Abstract

The liberalization of utilities has generally led to the creation of an economic regulator, nominally independent of government. The United Kingdom, as a pioneer of this process, has more than 30 years of experience with independent regulators. However, by 2019, the three main regulated utilities in the United Kingdom, energy, water and rail, were in disarray with a combination of high prices, poor service and a failure to achieve the goals of competition set at the time of the reforms. Government, the companies and the regulators must all bear the blame for this situation. We focus on the regulator in this article and argue that there a number of factors behind their failings including a concentration on economic issues to the detriment of other issues such as environment and public welfare, a lack of public accountability and a poor culture in the regulators based on a view that regulatory interventions were always counterproductive. Given that regulators are appointed by government and funded by Parliamentary vote, the claim of independence is not credible and there are circumstances when government should be able to overrule regulators in the broader public interest. We suggest that expanding the range of skills among the regulatory decision makers, regular rigorous Parliamentary scrutiny and a much stronger focus on the attributes consumers require – affordability, reliability and sustainability – rather than the current obsession with competition would improve the regulators’ performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Steve Thomas, 2019. "Is the ideal of independent regulation appropriate? Evidence from the United Kingdom," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 20(3), pages 218-228, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:crnind:v:20:y:2019:i:3:p:218-228
    DOI: 10.1177/1783591719836875
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1783591719836875
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1783591719836875?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas, Steve, 2016. "A perspective on the rise and fall of the energy regulator in Britain," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 41-49.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Janice A. Beecher, 2019. "Does regulation fail or do we fail regulation?," Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, , vol. 20(3), pages 258-269, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fuentes González, Fabián & Webb, Janette & Sharmina, Maria & Hannon, Matthew & Pappas, Dimitrios & Tingey, Margaret, 2021. "Characterising a local energy business sector in the United Kingdom: Participants, revenue sources, and estimates of localism and smartness," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    2. Li, Francis G.N. & Trutnevyte, Evelina, 2017. "Investment appraisal of cost-optimal and near-optimal pathways for the UK electricity sector transition to 2050," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 89-109.
    3. Fuentes González, Fabián & Webb, Janette & Sharmina, Maria & Hannon, Matthew & Braunholtz-Speight, Timothy & Pappas, Dimitrios, 2022. "Local energy businesses in the United Kingdom: Clusters and localism determinants based on financial ratios," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PB).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:crnind:v:20:y:2019:i:3:p:218-228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.