International comparisons - England and Wales

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Introduction	Customers' bills	Unit costs	Customer service levels	Water quality
Environmental performance	Water balance	Water efficiency	Leakage	Network activity

International comparisons - England and Wales

The water and sewerage sectors in England and Wales comprise 21 fully privatised water companies (excluding Cholderton Water, which is a very small company). Ten companies provide both water and sewerage services and 11 provide water only services. There are also a number of inset appointees and water supply licensees, but we do not use these as comparators.

The companies are regulated by:

Ofwat, the economic regulator. We protect customers by promoting competition and setting price limits that enables companies to run their businesses efficiently;
the Drinking Water Inspectorate, which monitors the quality of drinking water supplied to customers; and
the Environment Agency, which scrutinises the companies' environmental performance.

Water policy and regulation in England is overseen by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and in Wales by the Welsh Assembly Government.

Differences between England and Wales and the other countries compared include the companies' structure, the regulatory system, the age of the infrastructure and the levels of metering.

Evidence suggests that the larger water companies in England and Wales display diseconomies of scale. This could affect comparisons made with often much smaller enterprises in other countries. Figure 1 compares the difference in size.

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