Welsh Water Authority (Hansard, 18 May 1988)

§ Mr. Maude

The report is published today.

The commission was asked to assess the extent to which it is possible for WWA to make net cost savings by end March 1990, and indicate the scale of gross increases and reductions in spending. This is the first time the commission has been asked to suggest specific figures for savings, making this reference unique among the 28 made to date under section 11 of the Competition Act 1980.

The report explains that in addition to making its own inquiries into the efficiency of WWA's operations, the commission discussed with the WWA the latter's own efforts and plans to reduce costs. During the course of the inquiry WWA reviewed its estimates to produce new savings, to yield a net cost reduction of £2.9 million in comparison with its actual costs in 1986–87.

In noting the scope for further improvements in efficiency, the commission recognise that WWA has already taken important steps in this direction and has embarked on a number of major programmes to improve its efficiency. Since 1984, WWA has made substantial and worthwhile changes in its management structure, and measures to improve its management information systems and to improve productivity are under way. It is modifying its capital appraisal procedures and aiming to give higher priority to cost-saving investment. The commission considers that, although many initiatives might have been taken earlier, the right policies are now in place.

The commission found serious problems in the area of customer accounting and debt collection and considered that arrears of debt have risen to unacceptable levels under the existing customer billing system. While the deficiencies had been recognised previously the priority afforded to the development of a new system was not fully reflected in the support and resources given to it. Only now is a new computerised system in the final stages of development. The commission considers it essential that the new system should be in operation in time for the 1989 billing and emphasises that the authority will have to ensure that sufficient resources are available to keep inputs up to date and take prompt action to collect identified debts. The commission accepts that WWA is now giving sufficient attention to the customer accounting system and to the collection of debts and so does not find that in these or any other matters the authority is operating against the public interest.

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Overall the Commission concludes that WWA should be able to achieve a new target of net savings amounting to a cost reduction of £2.9 million on 1986–87 costs and that particular areas in which savings might be made are increased manpower efficiency, closer attention to the charges made by agencies (mainly district councils) which provide sewerage services, and improved benefits from cost-saving investment.

The authority will be producing a preliminary response to the commission's findings within three to four months in the light of which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will make a statement.

Value of textiles (Division 65) imported into United Kingdom from MFA signatories OTS basis (cif) by country of consignment²
Signatory to MFA	1979 £th	¹Per cent. of total	1980 £th	¹Per cent. of total	1981 £th	¹Per cent. of total	1982 £th	¹Per cent. of total	1983 £th	¹Per cent. of total	1984 £th	¹Per cent. of total	1985 £th	¹Per cent. of total	1986 £th	¹Per cent. of total
Bangladesh	5,941	0.35	5,681	0.37	4,054	0.23	7,125	0.37	9,566	0.41	16,296	0.60	12,869	0.42	9,265	0.29
Brazil	9,769	0.58	7,119	0.46	8,701	0.49	9,413	0.49	10,917	0.47	13,235	0.49	13,156	0.43	9,849	0.31
Yugoslavia	1,228	0.07	818	0.05	834	0.05	1,842	0.10	4,474	0.19	7,107	0.26	9,898	0.33	8,673	0.27
Colombia	1,907	0.11	1,472	0.10	1,026	0.06	1,460	0.08	2,365	0.10	2,429	0.09	3,450	0.11	2,922	0.09
Czechoslovakia	5,221	0.31	4,888	0.32	3,928	0.22	4,565	0.24	5,340	0.23	6,271	0.23	8,689	0.29	9,045	0.29
Guatemala	6	0.00	31	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	11	0.00	0.00	0.00
Haiti	222	0.01	117	0.01	127	0.01	122	0.01	58	0.00	64	0.00	28	0.00	29	0.00
Hong Kong	65,945	3.90	49,481	3.21	54,581	3.10	53,163	2.76	63,384	2.73	63,726	2.36	62,275	2.05	71,551	2.26
Hungary	4,540	0.27	3,498	0.23	2,675	0.15	2,675	0.14	3,398	0.15	3,863	0.14	4,398	0.15	3,635	0.11
India	69,250	4.09	56,933	3.69	40,490	2.30	32,590	1.69	46,687	2.01	67,523	2.50	69,877	2.30	52,727	1.67
Indonesia	916	0.05	905	0.06	513	0.03	3,612	0.19	6,404	0.28	9,973	0.37	9,338	0.31	9,665	0.31
South Korea	19,949	1.19	18,678	1.21	26,095	1.48	27,064	1.40	24,694	1.06	27,581	1.02	31,774	1.05	36,184	1.14
Macao	410	0.02	2	0.00	10	0.00	7	0.00	10	0.00	93	0.00	6	0.00	3	0.00
Pakistan	26,787	1.58	22,530	1.46	23,802	1.35	29,422	1.53	30,319	1.31	33,491	1.24	46,680	1.54	50.800	1.61
Peru	1,258	0.07	1,140	0.07	872	0.05	1,024	0.05	2,219	0.10	3,078	0.11	2,987	0.10	2,439	0.08
Philippines	334	0.02	237	0.02	399	0.02	480	0.02	382	0.02	696	0.03	752	0.02	930	0.03
Poland	4,366	0.26	4,135	0.27	2,942	0.17	2,969	0.15	3,829	0.17	3,947	0.15	5,682	0.19	5,777	0.18
Romania	2,534	0.15	1,632	0.11	1,840	0.10	735	0.04	2,148	0.09	2,564	0.09	2,421	0.09	3,068	0.10
Singapore	4,776	0.28	2,566	0.17	2,983	0.17	2,499	0.13	3,264	0.14	1,656	0.06	1,786	0.06	2.732	0.09
Sri Lanka	359	0.02	289	0.02	439	0.02	544	0.03	576	0.02	906	0.03	1,427	0.05	1.270	0.04
Thailand	3,890	0.23	3,019	0.20	3,765	0.21	5,730	0.30	5,602	0.24	7,851	0.29	8,801	0.29	10,044	0.32
Uruguay	1,554	0.09	1,312	0.08	2,109	0.12	1,085	0.06	1,261	0.05	2,221	0.08	988	0.03	1,080	0.03
China³	26,189	1.55	24,829	1.61	33,562	1.91	36,891	1.91	44,756	1.93	51,238	1.89	58,594	1.93	50,574	1.60
Egypt³	5,285	0.31	3,719	0.24	3,930	0.22	3,851	0.20	4,635	0.20	7,242	0.27	8,068	0.27	6,897	0.22
Malaysia	3,817	0.23	3,133	0.20	4,947	0.28	3,992	0.21	5,177	0.22	6,623	0.24	5,636	0.19	6,531	0.21
Mexico	3,396	0.20	2,212	0.14	1,931	0.11	2,773	0.14	1,750	0.08	3,744	0.14	3,310	0.11	6,486	0.21
Argentina	1,674	0.10	654	0.04	361	0.02	480	0.02	0	0.00	0	0.00	21	0.00	3	0.00
Taiwan	7,912	0.47	7,660	0.50	7,903	0.45	13,770	0.71	15,759	0.68	15,558	0.58	15,599	0.51	25,948	0.82
Total United Kingdom imports	1,691,142		1,543,711		1,761,624		1,927,560		2,320,228		2,705,437		3,032,026		3,162,369
¹ Each MFA signatory's percentage of total textiles (Division 65) imported into United Kingdom.
² Bulgaria is not included as an MFA signatory because it is not a signatory to the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT). Costa Rica is not included as an MFA signatory because, although it has applied, a bilateral agreement has not yet been signed.
³ For all but two of the MFA signatories the agreement was initialised in 1986. For China, the agreement was initialised in 1984 and for Egypt it was initialised in 1979 and ended in 1986.

Source: Overseas Trade Statistics on general trade and country of consignment basis.