I've no doubt there are some out there who have heard of the Consumer Council for Water but I can honestly tell you I hadn't until today. The only reason I heard about it in fact was because of a press release by them on GNN essentially reminding us to drink to water.No doubt the Consumer Council for Breathing will be founded soon and we shall all be reminded to breath by press release. This said though I thought I'd check CCWater out and spotted an interest bit on their "About" page. It says,
"The Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) is making a difference to consumers by fighting their corner and making sure they get a fair deal.Nearly 600K sounds pretty good for six months but I wondered how that figure translated to their operating costs. Especially as they are primarily funded by DEFRA, ergo us, the taxpayer.
The figures speak for themselves. Since its inception in October 2005, the watchdog has obtained over 591,176 in compensation and rebates for consumers. This follows over 6,300 complaints received by CCWater between October 2005 and April 2006."
It transpires that the yearly operating cost is around 5.1m. Now, assuming we double the compensation claims figure for a years work, crude mathematics suggests that CCWater costs somewhere in the region of four times more to run than it actually achieves for the consumer it is championing.
Clearly a bargain!
2 comments:
Oh god, not another public services quango designed to massage employment figures. How many people does it employ Dizzy?
Just think what good we could do with adding those kind of running costs into a fund to help people who have already lost their pensions.
You're so wrong.
If you look at the minutes of the Board's meetings, it emerges that they actually think their annual cost will be more like £6m+ because Defra have not taken into account various things.
They also like to give themselves first class rail tickets...
Nice.
As you say: a bargain.
;-)
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