Beyond financials, the crisis at Thames Water is a far more fundamental failure (Thames Water secures extra £750m from shareholders to help stave off nationalisation, 10 July). Privatisation was pitched in the 1980s as a solution to systemic weakness in public services and the wider British state, but instead we’re left with a business model so broken that it benefits neither economy nor society.
As costs rocket and quality plummets, polling routinely shows public support for nationalisation – but not every firm follows the same blueprint. Unlike Thames Water, Welsh Water runs a non-profit model solely benefiting the public, returning more than £440m in customer dividends and enjoying a much higher credit rating. Nationalisation dominates the debate, but we have other viable alternatives.
The stark contrast between Thames and Welsh Water is rooted in the choice of social enterprise over traditional business models. Problems of privatisation are fundamentally linked to ownership, with shareholders putting profits before people and assets being hoarded rather than shared. Other business models expand ownership to workers, customers and wider communities, reinvesting profits to improve services and reduce costs.
Only a crisis, actual or perceived, brings about real change – and Thames Water presents an opportunity to do better business, by putting the public back into public services.
Victor Adebowale
Chair, Social Enterprise UK
