With the impacts of climate change increasingly becoming apparent, and multi-hazard risks to critical national infrastructure increasingly being realised, the polycrisis across infrastructure sectors is fast becoming a threat to national resilience. The resilience of UK utilities, such as water, energy, transport and telecoms security, is increasingly under threat not just from climate change, but also from vulnerability arising in man-made systemic regulatory failures.
In this article “Crisis, crisis, everywhere … why regulatory failure is at the heart of Britain’s many problems” Nick Butler, former Vice President at BP and visiting professor at Kings College London, explains why regulatory failure is at the heart of the national polycrisis.
The article examines the current Thames Water crisis as a symptom of wider systemic regulatory failings across national infrastructure, including energy, rail and telecoms, providing examples of how the regulators have failed to protect customers.,. It includes recommendations as to how a new ownership and not-for-profit structure alongside a reformed model of regulation could deliver future service improvements, greater customer value and water and energy security.
Read the full article Crisis, crisis, everywhere … why regulatory failure is at the heart of Britain’s many problems online from the Guardian.