I recently moved offices, into a lively co-working space a stone’s throw from pebbly Brighton Beach. I am surrounded by smart professionals doing every imaginable job that can be done with a computer and a set of headphones.
One of the first conversations I had with my new office companions was about water privatisation. Coming a generation after my own, most had no awareness that water utilities in England and Wales used to be publicly owned.
This sent me of down memory lane in the form of YouTube, to check out Government publicity campaigns at the start of water industry privatisation in 1989. First a series of television ads built awareness of the importance of water.
The quality of messaging would stand up today. One of the ads involved a milk float delivering all the water required by a neighbourhood by the bottle – with a touch of humour as one householder asks for extra as she’s “about to put the washing on”.
Humour was also used, along with popular tunes and characters, in the You Could be an H2Owner campaign for share ownership applications. In both ads, I was struck by how easy it was for a national, universal message to be conveyed when there was one vested owner – UK Government – rather than many.
The privatisation issue has reemerged full force with financial crisis at Thames Water, and the prospect of renationalisation of the UK’s largest water company is tracking up the list of challenges the industry faces. Thames chief executive Cathryn Ross did not duck it in her answers to MPs at the All Party Parliamentary Water Group meeting on 1 May.
“Other models are available” – she twice repeated.
According to The Guardian newspaper, with an election looming, moving Thames Water’s debt onto the Government’s books may be the only option that would bring about sufficient stabilisation to restore confidence not only in water, but in UK PLC. This analysis reveals how intrinsic the value of water is – stretching far beyond toilet and tap, river and reservoir – to pension funds around the world and the nation’s financial credibility.
For an industry that carries its cautious, risk-averse credentials on its sleeve – it is the principal custodian of public health after all, as well being heavily regulated – this is a curious place to arrive. Being risk averse is not only about caution in introducing innovative approaches, it is also about giving voice ahead of a crisis – and averting it.
It is no longer good enough to wait for the water to burst through the wall of a pipe to determine its condition, and similarly, winning back confidence and trust requires getting on the front foot with the sustainability of the sector on all fronts. If the privatised model in its current form is no longer fit for purpose in some or all utilities, then that needs to be voiced and addressed, if public confidence is to be won back across the piece.
The situation with Thames Water leads to the question – can water ever be considered wholly private, when such a critical service cannot be allowed to fail and would always ultimately be underwritten by government. Looking through the eyes of the public – some 63% of whom support renationalisation – if there is a case for the private sector owing water companies, then it needs to be made by those who support it.
Whatever the outcome of the current crisis at Thames, the water sector still has the most important job of all to do – delivering water and wastewater services to the entire population, with the biggest ever investment approaching with the start of AMP8 in 2025.
To this end, there is at least one lesson that can be taken from the earliest phase of privatisation history. Water companies still need to generate a coherent national message on the value of water and the services they provide, and the shared and critical role of the public in conserving and protecting resources, the networks and the environment.
