§ Mr. Gwilym JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales whether he has received any response from the Welsh water authority following the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter WalkerI have received the authority's initial response, which has been published today, and have placed a copy in the Library of the House.
The Monopolies and Mergers Commission was asked to report on the efficiency and costs of, and the services provided by, Welsh Water. After a thorough investigation, for which I am grateful, the Commission made 24 recommendations, eight of which it considered should be a matter of priority for the authority. Overall the Commission considered that, although it had detailed comments to make, the authority now had the right policies in place.
The recommendation that the Commission considered should be a matter of priority for the authority related to the implementation of the new customer accounting system, the collection of arrears of debt, manpower efficiency, the proposed cost and saving investment strategy, the development of business information systems, a work planning system to introduce and monitor performance targets for small jobs, the efficiency of section 15 agencies, the relationship between costs and services and the need for the athority to undertake rigorous and critical examination of its own operations.
The authority has successfully implemented its new customer accounting system, ahead of schedule, and introduced a work planning system to bring in and monitor performance targets for small jobs. Effective action is in hand to implement the other recommendations. A number of the recommendations not in these priority categories have also been implemented.
I am pleased to note that the authority is taking a positive stance in its consideration of the report; 701W implementation of its detailed recommendations will further improve the authority's performance and add to the considerable strides it has made towards increased efficiency.
I have drawn the Commission's report and this first response by the Welsh water authority to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment so that he can bring both to the attention of the other regional water authorities.