Customer engagement in UK water regulation: towards a collaborative regulatory state?

Abstract

Little is known about how processes of 'expert' control interact with or move towards collaborative models of regulation. This paper focuses on a critical example of such an apparent shift: customer engagement in price-setting in water regulation in Scotland and England/Wales. By drawing on original interview and documentary analysis, the paper demonstrates a neglected rationale for and usage of 'collaborative regulation': regulators introduced customer engagement to incentivise regulated firms into further efficiencies. This points towards an increasing hybridisation of the contemporary regulatory state, in which collaborative regulatory processes are used to advance 'econocratic' objectives of expert regulators.

Stakeholder engagement as a conduit for regulatory legitimacy?

“…As contributions in this special issue demonstrate, the regulatory state is undergoing a move towards the 'responsive' rather than the 'responsible' regulatory state (Koop & Lodge, 2020), 'a shift away from the model of strictly economic, de-politicised regulation' (Haber & Heims, 2020). This is an emerging feature of the regulatory state diagnosed in this special issue as well as elsewhere: Heims and Lodge (2018), documenting a move towards customer engagement, for instance, speak of a shift to the 'collaborative regulatory state' in the UK context, while Busuioc and Jevnaker (2020) studying EU agency stakeholder committees, diagnose a general shift towards greater politicization in the EU regulatory state: 'Under a combination of legislator-engendered ambiguity and agency-driven initiatives, a whole range of core agency activities and key agency structures have been opened up to societal and interest group input' (Busuioc & Jevnaker, 2020).…”

“…They do so precisely to empower specific constituencies over others, to give voice and access to specified (under-represented) interests and/or to adjust existing disbalances. In this function, they can allow regulators to harness engagement to achieve long-standing goals (see for instance, Heims & Lodge, 2018). However, when not carefully tailored, such structures can introduce biases rather than alleviate existing ones: agencies can (unintentionally) come to structure and organize their own biases Yackee, 2015).…”

Regulatory reform and the regulatory state in the post-COVID-19 world

“…Where there is sufficient mobilisation against the empowerment of government, demands for stronger “stakeholderisation” of the regulatory process (see, e.g. Heims & Lodge, 2018; Lauren, 2021) could prevail.…”

Reputation‐SourcedAuthority and the Prospect of Unchecked Bureaucratic Power

“…The implications are especially important in a context where public organizations are increasingly found to be relying upon accountability‐seeking behavior, voluntarily embedding themselves in new accountability ties, beyond formal requirements. Customer engagement, stakeholder involvement, and “collaborative regulation” are the noms du jour in regulatory practice (Heims and Lodge 2018). A whole host of bureaucratic agencies in the US and European contexts are found to engage in accountability‐seeking behavior (e.g., Busuioc 2010; Karsten 2015; Koop 2014; Magill 2009; Reiss 2011) as well as a variety of stakeholder engagement and entrepreneurial activities (Arras and Braun 2018; Busuioc and Jevnaker 2020; Braun and Busuioc 2020; Wood 2018).…”