Rob Francis, Associate Director at Frontier (Europe), spoke at the Essential Services Commission of Victoria (ESC) Water Pricing conference on the 9th and 10th of November in Melbourne. The two-day event was attended by representatives from water utilities and regulators across Australia. The purpose of the conference was to share ideas on options to reform the regulation of water prices in Victoria.

Rob presented two papers. On the first day, he presented findings from Frontier’s study for the ESC on options for regulating water prices. The study evaluates the alternative methods available for regulating prices and provides a high-level assessment of their applicability to the water sector in Victoria. On the second day, he presented the analysis from a paper prepared for Wessex Water on the scope to introduce direct negotiation between customers and the utility as part of the regulatory process. The paper describes the different types of negotiation and considers the cases where direct negotiation is most likely to be effective.

Following the ESC conference, Rob and colleagues from Frontier (Australia) ran several in-depth roundtable forums for regulators and water businesses in Melbourne and Sydney.

Frontier regularly advises water utilities and regulators on issues relating to regulatory reform.

For more information, please contact Goran Serdarevic on g.serderavic@frontier-economics.com, or call +44 (0)20 7031 7000.