Regulator wants chance to look at food, fuel and fares
Thursday 13th October 2011, 2:29PM BST.
FOOD and fuel prices and taxi fares are some of the issues Guernsey’s Office of Utility Regulation could investigate with a new competition law, the regulator has said.
OUR director general John Curran (pictured) said he was hoping members would approve funding for a competition law at this month’s debate.
As executive director of the Jersey Competition Regulation Authority, Mr Curran has announced plans to investigate food prices in the island.
But Mr Curran said he was not yet able to do the same in Guernsey.
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Why not focus on what you should already be doing.
I sent an enquiry over two weeks ago and I have chased it once and I have not yet had any response from the OUR.
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Now he’s scraping around for work to justify his six figure salary!
I’m trying to remember what he’s done for me over the last three or so years … Ah yes
A proliferation of ugly phone masts
Dearer post
Electricity prices through the roof
Makes This is Jinsy look like an epic
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It is right that OUR examine supermarket prices. Over here we have the Co-operative Society of the Channel Islands, Marks and Spencers and Waitrose. As well as a few other stores.
What we need in Guernsey is real competition. Take for example a 500g tub of Anchor Spreadable. £3.09 in the Co-op. Tesco £1.93.
Time to bring in the other supermarket giants like Asda and Tesco to give Waitrose (often more expensive than M&S) `a run for their money. Not everyone works in the Finance sector and earns mega bucks.
Whilst shopping at the Co-op Homemaker this weekend I asked if they gave discount for cash. No, just the dividend of 4%. What they on’t tell you is they mark up the price much more than 4%. Their policy is not to price match with others like Amazon, or even local stores for white goods. So I went to John Lewis on line and got a tv for £200 less plus my VAT off. I will never shop at Homemaker again for goods unless I need them right here and right now. They could sell a lot more if they were more competitive in the marketplace, and not seen by most to be ripping us all off.
The report by Loughborough University into the Guernsey Cost of Living just goes to prove how much we are being ripped off over here, by the supermarkets.
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Value Shopper, it’s not up to the OUR whether or not to bring Asda or Tesco over here, it’s up to those supermarkets.
The OUR is such a waste of money.
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I`ll give the OUR some competition if the States want it. I`ll be OUR II and do it for a third of the wage Curran is getting.
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Too many manopolies on this island for a competition law to make any difference. Still i’d like to know how there can be as much as 15p per liter difference in petrol between garages. And how a 4 pack of beer can cost up to £7. Excuses like ‘covering overheads’ and ‘convenience’ just don’t wash with me.
Until people stop allowing themselves to be ripped off we will continue to be ripped off. Simple really
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Value Shopper – I agree with you that the food retail market is biased towards the top end of the market, but there is not a lot that a regulator can do about that.
You cannot just “bring over” Tesco and Asda, they need to want to come here. If their market share is too small it will not be worth their while.
I understand that Tesco and Sainsburys looked at the old Sandpiper stores and decided not to bother – Waitrose was the only one who was interested, presumably because they saw that there is a part of this community who will pay for their top end products, whilst the rest of the community would be served by their standard products.
Yes, cost of living is high here but we live on an island and so that is inevitable to an extent. It is the flip side of having beaches on our doorstep and a relatively easy way of life (no sitting in traffic jams for an hour on the way to work, etc.).
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Doesn’t seem that we really need the rather expensive Mr Curran to look into shop prices – Value Shopper has just published an in depth report for free.
The fare I like Curran to investigate is the cost of the one to get him out of the Island. When he produces a glossy report with lots of pointless graphs to highlight that it is overpriced I guess there might be a few of us who pay his and his staff’s salaries who might chip in to make up the difference.
Folks I know have just been doing work at their offices. Seems they are very proficient at playing solitaire down there – presumably to test the price of electricity or something.
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It used to be said “Why is there only one Monopolies Comission?” surely competion for the OUR would make them cheaper and more efficient or how about comission only pay on results?
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Bring back Regina Finn – she didn’t seem to cost a fraction of the Curran t one – pun intended!
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It’s a pity he can’t get us some relief on gas prices … or doctors’ fees … or advocates’ fees …
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I dont understand the OUR…… I’d be happy to pay extra for a loaf of bread if you manage to sort out the ludicrous electricity prices.
Exactly what do you do to justify your fees?? All I’m seeing is all my bills getting significantly higher.
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Assuming the OUR investigate and confirm that this island is a very expensive place to live (as we already know) are they actually able to do anything about the high prices?
If the answer is no as I suspect then why are we bothering with them?
Unless they can save us a lot of money then we should not pay them a fortune to state the obvious.
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@ Dave Haslam..The OUR is responsible (in part at least)for the recent massive increases in electricity because for a number of years the OUR gave everyone what they thought they wanted..prices that didn’t always go up every year..problem is because the Electricity Company then essentially had its income capped by a price control it meant they couldn’t save/reinvest profit. So, now the price control is removed UP go the prices in a big way to make up the difference.
Anyway, now that the OUR has been “reviewed” maybe its new ways will better suit those he’s supposed to serve….US.
Certainly thinking a review of food prices might not be such a bad idea.
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To all those above complaining about high prices … start up your own shop and stock the items in question at a lower price. If it truly is possible to open and run a shop, charging lower prices, and still making money then you’ll be quids in. Don’t criticise others for not doing something if you are not prepared to do it yourself ( the above apples equally to buses / planes / ferries / taxis / cars etc…. )
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Valueshopper – of course the co-op mark up their prices by more than 4%. They have rent, salaries, utility bills etc to pay which they have to cover out of their gross profit.
There are all sorts of valid reasons why goods cost more here. Rents are higher as land is a scarce resource, staff want higher wages than their equivalents in the UK, the goods have to be shipped here etc etc.
By all means, complain if you feel the price differential is excessive, but don’t expect to be able to buy something at UK prices when we live in a different economic environment.
Personally, I give local retailers a chance to get close to the cost of something shipped here. You’d be surprised how much it actually costs to ship something large/heavy!
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Sounds like man with time on hands trying to justify existence!
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Office of UTILITY Regulation – In my understanding a body set up to regulate the previously States run utility providers. Not that I necessarily disagree with competition law, but it sounds like the OUR are busy looking for new pies to stick their fingers in.
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Everything thta the OUR looks at ends up costing us more money.. I was under the impression that the OUR was to bring costs dowwn not increase them !
Lecky up ! more rises on the way..
Postal Prices Up !
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One word solves all.
EXODUS
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David I agree.
Early on in the latest report on the subject of regulation, it asks the question as to whether commercialisation of our utilities and the style of regulation we have adopted could ever work in a small community like ours where the State is the major shareholder of the companies involved? They put it like this. “Is this type of animal destined for extinction in this type of environment?” I think the answer to that question was always going to be “yes” and if the animal looks like the present OUR set up, then we should not wait for its natural extinction to occur, it should be taken out the back and put out of its misery now. I don’t want a more cumbersome solution to the mistakes we made in the past, I want a solution that takes us back to the sensible position we were, before all this costly regulation started. To the days when the States kept a firm hand on the tiller of our utilities on behalf of our people. Without the massive costs of regulation added to their bills. It has been no secret politically or publicly that I was and remain totally apposed to the commercialisation and subsequent regulation by an external body of our utilities and all other strategic States assets. I was also apposed to the sale of Guernsey Telecoms and my prediction that we would end up with a worse alternative as a result of commercialisation has proved to be correct. To my mind this whole futile exercise has led us into an autocratic shambles that even officials in the European Union would be proud of. What on earth were the States thinking of at the time? We created this mess purely because we are told in the original billet that it was the model they had “elsewhere,” that favourite cliché of the meddlers who never value what Guernsey already has. Advice from those fresh off the boat, who have no knowledge of the island or its tried and tested ways of running’s its affairs and because we have been gullible enough to listen to all this rubbish advice, we have destroyed much of what was once good in this community. Of course, as always, they also threw in the tempting morsel of more competition which is supposed to reduce prices as people supposedly have more choice. Well competition hasn’t worked either, we have had competition in telecoms and post and prices have only gone in one direction and that is up, they certainly have not been reduced to the consumer. In telecoms case call charges have been adjusted for business and long distance calls but the overall cost to Guernsey people on line rentals has gone up substantially. It also didn’t matter much to the architects of this folly that there was never likely to be any competition in our electricity or water utilities and although water was not on the radar at that time, my prediction that it would not belong before it was has already come true. Short sighted States members once again tried to get regulation that may work after a fashion in a large country like the UK, to work in a small community such as ours and it has failed miserably. We destroyed the stability we once had and now we are trying to prop up the wreckage of that mistake with the latest sticking plaster suggested by C&E. My perdiction at the time of the original debate on the matter that there was never going to be anything in it for the people of Guernsey other than higher charges and poorer services which they would have to pay for has proved to be accurate. The thing I find absolutely incredulous, is that they only had to look across the water to see that the whole process has never worked properly in the UK. It just created a bunch of very wealthy utility bosses who frequently award themselves obscene bonuses for poor management, second-rate performance and with the public being fleeced by ever increasing prices. Yesterday the British government had to call in the utility bosses to try and persuade them to curb their excess profits as Gas, water and electricity become unaffordable for thousands of UK families. As for Guernsey,where we used to do things properly, we went from having locally managed political utility boards, elected representatives who served the people and who gave their time on these boards for free, to having commercialised boards with paid board members and much enhanced salaries for the utility management. On top of that we have engineered the creation of the overblown OUR which has led to inconsistent pricing, and a real loss of confidence in the whole process by the public. Everything that has an effect on pricing also has an effect on inflation, the biggest plague on any economy. The cost of power water and Gas are already having a huge effect on our people and it is absolutely pointless in us as a government trying to keep taxes and charges to the absolute minimum, while at the same time allowing the utilities to keep raising prices with the blessing of the regulatory body that was supposed to protect the consumer. We know that the costs have gone up globaly and that the utilities need investment but it has to be accumulated over a much longer period, even the authors of this lastet report recognise that we have a very small number of consumers from which to find the money. But we cannot put those consumers in a position where their basic utilities become unaffordable to a large number of them.
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It would appear that the Regulators are not regulated themselves – why is that?
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What is going on at present is manifestly unfair, we are asking this generation of islanders to find all the money for future investment in these companies after years of under investment in the utilities by the States as a whole and many in our community are being forced to choose between buying foodstuffs for their families or paying the utility bills. The new waste water charge is another example of this generation being hit by lost opportunities in the past to upgrade the islands sewage system, when we had millions in surpluses coming in every year. The demands on the utilities by business and domestic users have grown as the population has grown and therefore the scale of investment needed has grown with it. However it is the domestic users that is suffering the most as they have a triply whammy with rising energy prices across the globe and the added costs of regulation together with future funding costs. The corporate sector as I understand it still gets cheap rates for periods during the day and when we were getting a substantial contribution from this sector in corporation tax that would seem to have been acceptable, that is no longer the case. These States owned utilities are vital strategic assets that should have their main infrastructure costs funded from our capital reserve with a much longer payback period to that reserve by the utilities which would then allow them to keep prices at affordable levels for the consumer. It is wholly wrong that the consumer should shoulder this entire burden over a relatively short period as they struggle with other rising costs of food, travel and chid care. We haven’t asked airport passengers to fund the whole of the 80 million airport project costs through the price of their tickets. Or asked the Port users to fund the millions needed to upgrade the Harbours. There needs to be a complete re-think of the way theses vital utilities are funded and with a steady income stream and a lot less interference by the regulator a much more feasible investment plan should be possible.
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Dave Jones
A lot of words. And I don’t disagree with any of them.
As Bob Chilcott pointed out recently, we seem to be getting inundated with UK imports who come over here and are given highly paid positions on the public payroll to tell us how we ought to be doing things. We are increasingly over-regulated and yet these people still seem to be allowed to put their massive hands into the public purse and pontificate about how we need even more regulation. We don’t. They are strangling the life [and very often the enthusiasm] out of local businesses as we employers start to wonder why the hell we bother trying to operate sensibly and profitably. At times it increasingly feels like it would be easier to shut up shop. But that just can’t happen of course. Mind you, it would at least mean that they had less of us to regulate and they might then do one!
One question arises out of your first post – who set up / appointed Mr Curran’s expensive team of ineffective meddlers and can’t they remove them with comparable ease? The saving could pay for something such as the school dentist to be reintroduced. That was got rid of easily enough so why can’t the regulators?
The OUR is of course just one [albeit increasingly self-publicising] part of the problem. Regulation is coming at us from all angles; like the Director of Environmental Propoganda, or whatever her title is, with the nonsensical licensing scheme which traps anyone taking an empty lightbulb box off a building site. Are her overlords aware that some folks have filled in her forms and sent their cheque many months ago and it still hasn’t been cashed? No licence issued. Just put another hurdle up but don’t bother to police it properly – now let’s move on to our next “essential” initiative plagarised from the UK.
It’s all wholly unnecessary window dressing which does no more than help them in their quest to justify their pointless roles and their serious remuneration packages, whilst kicking common sense firmly into touch.
And there’s more on the way no doubt as the legal boys ponder a raft of further employment legislation.
For crying out loud, how much rope are these people going to be given before they hang us all?
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SBN – agree with your comment about a lot of words by Dave! Dave have you ever heard that less is more?
SBN – Bob Chilcott talks utter tosh and is a dinosaur completely out of touch with reality – he said in the press that regulator was responsible for water charges going up. Afraid Bob is in la la land.
Dave – do not usually agree with you and having waded through your post I do agree with you that the electricity board needs to borrow to fund its huge investement programme – make it happen dav!
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Sugared Brazil Nut
I’m sure Deputy Dave will reply to your post in full but in answer to your question ‘who set up this team of expensive meddlers?’I believe the Commerce and Employment Department saw it as a handy way of offloading/outsourcing some of their workload and convinced the majority of the dozy States members to go along with it
Besides the fishing dispute debacle those in Commerce and Employment responsible for bringing in the value added O.U.R are …
Deputy C S McNulty Bauer St Peter Port South
Deputy M S Laine The West
Deputy R W Sillars South East
Deputy M J Storey St Peter Port North
Deputy R R Matthews St Peter Port North
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Mark,
You have missed the point, it is not necessarily about stuff being shipped here.
For example milk and bread which are staple parts of most peoples diet (i by the way am part of the farming community). I would not want to swap my milk for any other substitute, however with 4 kids the temptation of english milk (the equivalent of the green skimmed)is very inviting as i could purchase 3 litres for nearly 30p less than our 1. The same with bread and this is just 2 main examples that are produced here locally.
I wonder how many people would like the english firms to offer their alternative because i for one am very tempted and i have been brought up with milk straight from the Guernsey cow!!!
I wonder why so many shops are struggling to function particularly in town. Again, i cannot afford to shop in town let alone drive there. I will continue to support the best option for myself and my family and that will be via the internet as my wife can purchase from next cheaper than the one in town and as it is not a local store i have no conscience. We need to get our own house in order and not at the expense of the local good will. ( how about get the finance industry to contribute a fair rate of tax because i think we would be far better off without them)!
I get taxed on 80 plus hours a week average. How is that fair? I have no support from anyone and am a proud Guern unlike some of our ilk that sponge off the social. The middle of the road are the ones getting hammered here and it is disgusting. Just because i do not earn a high wage why should i be surpressed any further by paying tax above my forty hours when some cannot be bothered to work at all. If i choose to work in my free time as opposed to socialise then it is i that should reap the rewards.
Anyway well done Dave Jones, good posts, but how do you propose to stop this rot with the non local population ever increasing????
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The OUR was set up by the States, like many things at the time it was made to sound like a plausible idea freeing up the Utilities with an independent regulator keeping an eye on things, protecting the consumers interests. The real problem is that this light touch regulation has grown into a huge autocratic monster that has ended up costing the consumer millions over the years.
What can be done? Well this assembly has shown that they have no will to change it, so it will have to wait until the next assembly is voted in to see if a new crop of Deputies have the courage to end this madness.
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Middle Man
Good point about local milk .. but local BREAD?
I don’t get out much and Torteval is just a bit too far for my old jalopy to make the round trip so I guess that’s where the vast wheat fields must be situated,along with the huge silos to store the grain before it is transported to the flour mills and then finally on to Senners in St Martins
As for your tax on your many work hours per week think of it as keeping 80p in every pound,although I must admit it is annoying to know that some of the remaining 20p is being handed out as pocket money to useless workshy scroungers
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What about water charges? And waste water charges?
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Maybe Mr Curran should look at the name over the door when he arrives at work in the morning “Office of Utility Regulation”. Since when have shops, garages and taxis been utilities?
Just do your job regulating the utilities Mr Curran and don’t try to justify your existence by meddling with things that do not concern you.
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Surely the time is ripe for a ‘Bonfire of the Quangos’ with OUR first in line.
I’d never thought I’d say it, but I would prefer the unpaid, meddling of Deputies to the over paid, lets please everyone, but make sure the consumer pays for it OUR Quango.
If we need to save money OUR must be the first for the chop.
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Cheers Ray,
Last para sums it up and it is very frustrating to say the least.
Bread, well i know what you saying but aside the sacasm that is exactly what i meant as in warrys and senners try to compete but have no choice with the other brands on the shelf. As for milk its a monopoly so how does that compare as fair? The same as veg, it is near impossible to compete and it is fact that the remaining few are only carrying on as it is all they know.
Do people realise that 90% of hedge veg is imported, i doubt it. next time you buy spuds from the coop or le riche look on the back of the bag and it will say packed by guernsey farm produce. that is because its cheaper for him to buy his potatoes from the uk and pack them in his bags then it is to grow them.
were doomed
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I think we should regulate the price of loo roll, lets face it more people use it than say taxis for example!
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@ Dave Jones – I don’t actually believe it, you posted something that I can agree with!!
Oh, and I see 2 more St Peter Port North star deputies are responsible for this on C&E
Is anybody going to offer a £250k prize for somebody to work out how Guernsey gets rid of a troublesome parish? (Well half of one)
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middleman
you have been a really naughty boy here.
can’t talk for anyone else but Guernsey potatoes on offer at the co-op have been grown in Guernsey
careful now!
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