Public Control Is Not Enough: Why Water Services Must Be Publicly Owned.
An opinion piece by Roland Brunner on behalf of the Blue Community Network.
For decades, governments in the UK and around the world have been told that public ownership of water services is unnecessary. The argument is familiar: private companies can operate water systems more efficiently, while governments regulate and control them. Ownership, we are told, does not matter. Good regulation does.
Reality tells a different story. Public control is essential. But public control alone is not enough. The reason is simple.
Control is almost always exercised after something has gone wrong. Ownership shapes decisions before they are made. A useful way to understand the difference is to think of a rally car.
The regulator is like the co-driver. The co-driver reads the map, warns of dangers ahead, and reminds the driver of the rules. But the co-driver never sits behind the steering wheel.
The driver decides how fast to go.
The driver decides when to brake.
The driver decides which risks are worth taking.
Most importantly, the driver decides where the journey is heading.
If the driver is racing to maximise profits, the co-driver cannot simply seize the steering wheel and choose a different destination. At best, the co-driver can issue warnings, recommend corrections, or intervene after mistakes have been made. By then, the accident may already have happened.
This is the structural limitation of regulation.
A regulator investigates pollution after a river has been contaminated. It imposes sanctions after untreated sewage has been discharged. It intervenes after infrastructure has deteriorated or after customers have experienced poor service. Even the most capable regulator is largely reactive. It can inspect, monitor, investigate, and punish—but it does not make the daily operational and investment decisions that determine whether problems arise in the first place.
By the time control begins, the damage has often already been done.
Moreover, regulation can rarely anticipate every loophole. When executive bonuses are prohibited, they may simply reappear under another name—as allowances, consultancy fees, retention payments, or other forms of remuneration. When one practice is restricted, another is devised. Regulation becomes a continuous game of catch-up.
This is not a failure of regulators. Most regulators work diligently and in the public interest. It is simply the consequence of asking a co-driver to control a vehicle that someone else owns and drives. Regulation just leaves too many loopholes. Regulations are not imposed, fines are not paid, decisions simply ignored.
The real question is therefore not simply how to regulate water services.
The real question is how to ensure that water systems operate in the public interest from the very beginning.
To answer that question, we must distinguish between three concepts that are too often confused: ownership, management, and governance.
Ownership determines whose interests the system ultimately serves.
Management determines how professionally and efficiently the system is operated.
Governance determines who participates in decisions, who is accountable, and how transparency is ensured.
All three matter. But ownership comes first. Ownership establishes the purpose of the institution.
A publicly owned water utility exists to provide a public service.
A privately owned company exists to create value for its owners.
Both may employ highly qualified engineers.
Both may comply with environmental regulations.
Both may provide reliable services for many years.
Yet their primary obligations are fundamentally different.
One is accountable first to citizens.
The other is accountable first to shareholders.
This difference shapes thousands of decisions that never appear in regulatory reports: whether maintenance is postponed, whether investments are delayed, whether staffing levels are reduced, whether dividends take priority over replacing ageing infrastructure, and whether long-term resilience is valued more highly than short-term financial returns.
Consider replacing ageing water mains.
For a publicly owned utility, this is an investment in future generations.
For a company under pressure to maximise returns, it is also a cost that reduces profits and shareholder payouts.
No regulator can completely remove that tension.
Public ownership changes the situation fundamentally.
When the public owns the water utility, society is no longer confined to the co-driver’s seat. Through democratic institutions, citizens determine the destination as well as the rules of the journey. Professional managers still drive the organisation day to day, but they do so on behalf of the public, under public oversight, and with a mandate to serve the common good rather than maximise returns for shareholders.
The experience of England and Wales illustrates why this debate matters.
Following the privatization of water and sewerage services, substantial private investment entered the sector. Over time, however, public concern grew over persistent leakage, repeated sewage discharges into rivers and coastal waters, ageing infrastructure, rising customer bills, increasing corporate debt, and significant shareholder payouts. Whether each individual company performed well or poorly is not the central issue. The broader question is whether a system designed around shareholder returns can consistently place the public interest ahead of financial interests.
The growing public debate in the United Kingdom suggests that many citizens now doubt that it can.
This does not mean that every publicly owned utility performs well.
Nor does it mean that public ownership alone guarantees success.
Public water systems also require professional management, adequate investment, transparency, democratic accountability, and independent oversight.
Poorly managed public utilities can fail.
Weak governance can undermine public confidence.
Ownership alone is not enough.
For the Blue Community Network, I would therefore advocate a model built on three inseparable pillars.
Public ownership, ensuring that water infrastructure belongs to the people and is managed for the common good.
Professional public management, ensuring efficient, innovative, financially responsible, and technically excellent services.
Democratic public governance, ensuring transparency, citizen participation, accountability, and long-term stewardship.
These three pillars reinforce one another.
Ownership establishes the mission.
Management delivers the service.
Governance ensures accountability.
Together they create something that regulation alone can never achieve:
A water system whose primary purpose is to serve the public interest.
This means protecting public health.
Safeguarding rivers, lakes, wetlands, and groundwater.
Ensuring universal and affordable access.
Investing for future generations.
Building resilience against climate change.
And treating water not as a commodity, but as a common good and a human right.
Water is unlike any other public service.
People can choose between different mobile phone providers.
They can postpone buying a new car.
They can shop elsewhere.
But no one can choose not to drink water.
No family can choose not to use sanitation.
Safe drinking water and sanitation are internationally recognized human rights.
Human rights should never depend primarily on business models whose legal obligation is to maximise returns for investors.
The debate is not about whether regulation matters. It certainly does.
Independent regulation, transparency, environmental standards, and public accountability are all essential. Every water utility—public or private—should be held to the highest standards of performance and environmental protection.
But regulation alone cannot transform a profit-driven enterprise into a public service.
The reason is structural.
A regulator is like the co-driver in a rally car. The co-driver can read the map, warn of sharp bends, and call for caution. But the co-driver never holds the steering wheel. As long as someone else owns the vehicle and decides the destination, the co-driver cannot determine where the journey ends.
If the driver is racing toward maximum shareholder returns, the regulator can slow the vehicle, issue penalties, or demand corrections. But the regulator cannot fundamentally change the purpose of the journey.
Ownership can.
That is why the question is not simply who controls water.
The question is who owns it, who sets its direction, and in whose interest it is managed.
For me, the answer is clear.
Water services should be publicly owned, professionally managed, and democratically governed because only this combination aligns the entire system—from its purpose to its daily operation—with the public interest.
As long as profit sits in the driver’s seat, regulation will always remain the co-driver.
If we want water services to stay on the road of the public interest, the steering wheel must remain in public hands.
Because water is life.
And life is not for sale.
Water for Life, Not for Profit.
For this debate, also consider the profound argumentation of Blue Community Ambassador David MacDonald and the Municipal Services Project, a global research network that explores progressive forms of public services with a focus on equity, sustainability and democratic engagement.
