Ofwat chief executive to step down ahead of regulator’s abolition
The chief executive of Ofwat is to step down at the end of the month, after the government announced the abolition of the water regulator for England and Wales.David Black has been in the role for four years, and will leave amid intense scrutiny of water companies and their regulators.Ofwat said the government will appoint a new interim chief executive before its abolition.The regulation of the English and Welsh water industry has become a key political issue in recent years, including during last year’s general election, amid a wave of anger over sewage spilling into Britain’s rivers and seas.Black’s decision comes as the government and the environment secretary, Steve Reed, prepare for what they have billed as the biggest overhaul of water regulation since the industry was privatised in 1989.
Ofwat has become a lightning rod for criticism of the sector, including over decades of underinvestment in infrastructure such as reservoirs and water treatment works while companies paid vast sums in dividends and other fees to their owners,Last year, the regulator gave a green light for companies to raise average bills by 36% over the next five years in order to pay for upgrades,After the decision to abolish the regulator, Black felt he had to go, according to a person familiar with internal discussions at Ofwat,However, the board did not want Black to leave and tried to persuade him to stay, the person said,One water company chief executive said they felt that he was the wrong figure to take the fall.
Black said: “I have been privileged to be able to lead Ofwat over the last four years, during which time we have achieved a huge amount together as a team for customers and the environment,The 2024 price review backed an investment programme of £104bn, along with a further £50bn investment in major new water resources which will improve service, environmental outcomes and resilience in the years to come,I wish the team every success as they continue their important work,”Black was appointed interim chief executive in April 2021, and was permanently appointed a year later,He had risen through Ofwat’s ranks after joining as director of economics in 2012.
Iain Coucher, Ofwat’s chair, thanked Black and said: “David has worked tirelessly to bring about transformational change in the water sector.He has sought new regulatory powers and resources to hold companies to account, taken major enforcement action and provided funding and incentive packages that drive continual improvements for customers.”Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionThe decision to replace Ofwat, revealed by the Guardian, was made after a review published last month by Sir Jon Cunliffe, a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, found that the sector was “broken”.The review recommended combining powers from four regulators, including Ofwat, into one.The interim boss of Ofwat will have to tackle several urgent issues.
The UK’s biggest water company, Thames Water, has been locked in talks to try to agree leniency on fines from the regulator, which it has said will be necessary for its lenders to inject billions of pounds of new funding as part of an attempted takeover.The regulator has also faced criticism for pay for water companies deemed by some politicians as excessive, and for the effectiveness of an effort to ban bonuses for the worst polluters.Ofwat was this week directed to scrutinise £1.3m in previously undisclosed pay for Yorkshire Water boss Nicola Shaw, after the Guardian revealed the existence of the payments via Yorkshire’s offshore parent company.The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was approached for comment.
The dark side of cryptocurrency
Andrew Bailey is right to distance the British financial system from cryptocurrency, but he is being too polite about it (Editorial, 29 July). Cryptocurrency is evil. Being speculative in nature, it serves no purpose as a useful currency, and being secretive, it facilitates international drug dealing, people trafficking and terrorism. In addition to helping destabilise our precarious world, it has a huge, unnecessary carbon footprint. It’s time for our financial authorities to speak truth to money
OpenAI stops ChatGPT from telling people to break up with partners
ChatGPT will not tell people to break up with their partner and will encourage users to take breaks from long chatbot sessions, under new changes to the artificial intelligence tool.OpenAI, ChatGPT’s developer, said the chatbot would stop giving definitive answers to personal challenges and would instead help people to mull over problems such as potential breakups.“When you ask something like: ‘Should I break up with my boyfriend?’ ChatGPT shouldn’t give you an answer. It should help you think it through – asking questions, weighing pros and cons,” said OpenAI.The US company said new ChatGPT behaviour for dealing with “high-stakes personal decisions” would be rolled out soon
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Google has outlined its latest step towards artificial general intelligence (AGI) with a new model that allows AI systems to interact with a convincing simulation of the real world.The Genie 3 “world model” could be used to train robots and autonomous vehicles as they engage with realistic recreations of environments such as warehouses, according to Google.The US technology company’s AI division, Google DeepMind, argues that world models are a key step to achieving AGI, a hypothetical level of AI where a system can carry out most tasks on a par with humans – rather than just individual tasks such as playing chess or translating languages – and potentially do someone’s job.DeepMind said such models would play an important role in the development of AI agents, or systems that carry out tasks autonomously.“We expect this technology to play a critical role as we push toward AGI, and agents play a greater role in the world,” DeepMind said
Should big tech be allowed to mine Australians’ text and data to train AI? The Productivity Commission is considering it
The Productivity Commission is examining whether technology firms should be exempt from copyright rules that stop companies mining text and data to train artificial intelligence models.The commission, in its interim report into “harnessing data and the digital economy”, used copyright as a case study for how Australia’s existing regulatory framework could be adapted to manage the risks of artificial intelligence.A key recommendation was that the federal government should conduct a sweeping review of regulations to plug potential gaps that could be exploited by “bad actors” using AI.Scott Farquhar, the co-founder of software company Atlassian, last week called for an “urgent” overhaul of Australia’s copyright rules, arguing they were out of step with other comparable countries.Farquhar said creating exemptions for text and data mining to train large language models “could unlock billions of dollars of foreign investment into Australia”
Dial N for nostalgia: landlines are back | Brief letters
Emma Brockes’ article threw open the door to landline memories (Worried about your child’s screentime? Get a landline, 31 July). When it rang, the enthusiasm that came with the conviction “it’s for me” v the reluctance when seemingly knowing “it’s not for me”. This was undoubtedly because the phone in a cold hallway meant no one wanted to leave the warmth and TV in the sitting room. Virginia RanscombeDerbyhaven, Isle of Man I can’t believe it has taken 40 years and a thinktank to realise the bleeding obvious about the sale of council housing (Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’, 3 August). Wrong policy from the very beginning – and the fact it continued for so long is nothing short of scandalous
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