Tagged with Ofgem

If OFWAT refuses price increases, why not OFGEM too?

OFWAT has just turned down as “unjustified” an 8% hike in customer bills proposed by Thames Water, the biggest UK water company. So shouldn’t OFGEM take a leaf out of OFWAT’s book in dealing with proposed energy price hikes? The same profiteering has appeared in the water industry, with huge sums being set aside for dividends and fancy remuneration packages for senior managers, but too little for long-term investment.

But OFWAT has hit back with plans to cut bills by 13% by the end of the decade. Thames Water is currently trying to add £29 to the water bills of its 14 million customers in London and the South-East, on the grounds that they should contribute to the cost of the planned Thames tideway ‘super-sewer’ in London, plus also pay for higher Environment Agency charges and recompense the privatised water company for the recent spike in unpaid water bills. The price rise that Thames Water are demanding would hoist bills to nearly £400 a year by 2015. Continue reading →

One big reform that won’t be in the Budget

The energy market is one of Britain’s biggest scandals.   A report out yesterday finds the Big Six energy companies are ‘greedy’ and ‘bad’, according to the industry regulator Ofgem which says they profiteer and ruthlessly exploit the vulnerable.   As a result a fifth of all households are now in fuel poverty – having to spend more than a fifth of their income on fuel.   Tomorrow’s Budget will miss a perfect opportunity to ease fuel poverty, will leave a failed market structure intact, and will make an empty gesture towards a ‘fair fuel stabiliser’.   Second only to the selfishness of the banks, British Gas, Npower, E.ON, EDF, Scottish and Southern Electricity, and Scottish Power are holding the country to ransom.   What should be done to end their rapaciousness? Continue reading →