Productivity improvement in the water and sewerage industry in England since privatisation: Final report for Water UK.

Water UK has commissioned Frontier Economics to quantify the productivity gains achieved by the water and sewerage companies in England since privatisation in 1989. To undertake this work, Frontier Economics has estimated the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth achieved by the industry between 1992/93 and 2016/17. Our work is based on an update of previous work published by Saal & Parker (2001)1 . Notwithstanding the limited timescale of the project, the study has also sought to explore the potential for extending the analysis through further sensitivity of the model to different assumptions, and through the development of new techniques. Frontier Economics has completed this work in collaboration with Professor David Saal of the Centre for Productivity and Performance at Loughborough University, who is a leading expert in productivity analyses in the UK. The work has been independently reviewed by Professor Tom Weyman-Jones.