How Can the Concept of Public Value Influence UK Network Utility Regulation?

Abstract

There is much recent debate about extending the purposes of investor-owned firms to embrace the wider interests of a variety of stakeholders. Network regulatory decisions already involve extensive use of centralised social cost-benefit analysis to capture some aspects of public value. A gap remains which might be filled by a decentralised process, in which firms are supported by their regulator to expand their purposes to include the pursuit of public value, identified by regulated firms in collaboration with consumers and citizens, and delivered in innovative and entrepreneurial ways. We conclude in general, in application to a case study, that the approach has a role, but its success depends critically upon investor-owned utilities taking the change in purposes seriously; collecting and acting on information about consumer and citizen preferences systematically; and upon regulators avoiding incentive structures which guide companies down dysfunctional paths.