Interviews  >  Andrew Riseley: The business of competition

As CEO of the Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authorities, Andrew Riseley is a rare breed – the head of an organisation that sees Jersey and Guernsey working closely together. He talks to Nick Kirby about everything this role entails.

Originally from Melbourne in Australia, Andrew Riseley arrived in Jersey in 2011 having seen all sides of the competition ‘industry'. As a competition and regulatory lawyer, he's worked at large law firms in both the UK and Australia, in-house at a major UK utility, and served as a legal advisor at the UK Competition Commission. His experience covers regulated sectors such as water, energy and telecommunications, competition law and public procurement, grocery retailing and airport price controls.

Having joined the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority (JCRA) in July 2011 as Deputy Executive Director, Andrew took over as Chief Executive of the Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authorities (CICRA) in June 2012, and is responsible for overseeing further pan-Channel Island regulatory work, as well as directing regulatory activities on both islands. He spoke to businesslife.co about his time in office so far, and the distinct challenges of the competition landscape on the islands.

Having worked in the UK and Australia for large organisations, what attracted you to the JCRA (now CICRA) role, which appears relatively small in comparison?

In my work prior to moving to the Channel Islands I'd seen competition regulation from all sides of the ‘transaction'. The Deputy Exec role at the JCRA was not only a senior position, but it gave me the chance to become more involved with decision making. The fact that it's a small organisation has its pros and cons, but you get a chance to really make a difference, and there aren't so many layers of approval to go through. It's great to be part of a small group of people who are keen to do the best job they can for the Channel Islands.

And from a purely selfish perspective, the quality of life in Jersey is infinitely better than that of Surrey where I was living before!

CICRA is one of only a few examples of cooperation between Guernsey and Jersey actually working. How did this happen, and what have the ups and downs been?

In a way, it was a pretty organic process. Before my time, the JCRA and the Office of Utility Regulation (OUR) in Guernsey were beginning to work together, but it was all rather ad hoc. As I understand it, the JCRA was looking for a new CEO and a board member asked whether they should approach the head of the OUR to be the joint head. They spoke to Commerce and Employment in Guernsey and Economic Development in Jersey, and it was ‘inked' within a week.

We still have two different authorities in law – the JCRA and the Guernsey Competition and Regulatory Authority (GCRA) – and we work within that legal framework, but operate as a single institution. So when I'm allocating people in my team across the islands to work on projects that come in, it's not based on where they happen to sit but who's best for the role – who has the capacity and who has the expertise. In practice, the way we're set up is not that constraining.

Do you anticipate taking this one step further – to the point where CICRA oversees one set of laws?

It's working as it is, so why fix what isn't broken? In terms of the new Guernsey Competition Law, we've endeavoured to work with the drafter to make sure the substantive provisions are as similar to the Jersey laws as possible. The view we've taken since September 2010 is that legislative change can be quite protracted, so if it can function the way it's functioning at the moment, it's hard to create a case for urgent change.

Considering the success of CICRA, what is your take on further cooperation in other industries shared by the islands, most notably financial regulation?

In truth, I suspect financial regulation is more complex – partly because the islands see themselves as competitors in financial services rather than bodies that have an interest in collaborating. From the CICRA perspective, there are two advantages of pan-CI working – we are more efficient and less costly. The key benefit, though, is having a common set of rules that businesses operating across the islands can adhere to. All of our telecom companies operate across both islands – so it reduces the amount of regulatory complexity if they know there's one set of people administering the rules and one regulatory approach they have to comply with.

I'm not an expert in financial services, but I'd imagine there's a lot you can do without formally or legally merging the two regulators.

How difficult is it being a regulator in small island economies where some sectors are naturally monopolistic?

It's a challenge in that sometimes the scope for there being competition is very limited. I think it just means you have to regulate in a smart way and foster competition where it exists. Part of it is about trying to ensure that consumers have alternative sources from outside the islands if that is appropriate, so they're not captive to one or two providers in the islands.

Given the abolition of LVCR, one might argue that it wasn't right to open up the postal market to competition. How would you respond to that?

When we opened up competition in Jersey in 2009/10, there were instances where bulk mailers who were competing vigorously for business were being hamstrung in those efforts by what they saw as relatively inefficient postal operators. When we went to talk to the bulk mailers in August and September 2011, they said the effect of competition on the postal market had been remarkable and the operators had risen to the challenge and had improved the service they provided to their customers.

The landscape is different now post-LVCR, yet we would argue there are still fulfilment businesses in the Channel Islands who are benefiting from competing suppliers in postal services. Moreover, the introduction of competition also spurred both Guernsey Post and Jersey Post to increase their efficiency. And another thing is that opening the market to competition didn't jeopardise Jersey Post's ability to deliver the universal service obligation. So all of the assertions that were made at the time that bulk mail was the only way of ensuring the delivery of the local service just weren't borne out.

You are almost a year into the Strategic Plan 2012-2014 – how are you doing so far in meeting your objectives?

Things are going pretty much according to plan. On telecoms we continue to work to harmonise regulation across the islands. We've published an initial decision in Jersey and a draft decision in Guernsey that requires Sure and JT to introduce wholesale line rental, which means that consumers will no longer have to use Sure and JT for their exchange lines. We're also looking at fixed number portability and whether we should allow people to keep their number when they move their landline to a new provider.

In the medium term, we'd like consumers to benefit from telecoms bundles, allowing operators to innovate and offer products tailored to consumers' needs.

On post, we are looking at how we regulate, adopting a lighter touch and trying to focus on areas where consumers are vulnerable. And on electricity, we've been encouraged by the States in Guernsey to rethink the way we regulate Guernsey Electricity, so we are thinking about the best way of adding value to the island by regulating in a pragmatic and proportionate way – seeing whether there is a way for us to step back, to be less interventionist, while hopefully looking after consumers and giving Guernsey Electricity a spur to increase efficiency.

Tell us about the new Channel Island Competition laws – why is it necessary to introduce them?

In Jersey, the competition law has been in place since 2005 and has essentially remained unchanged since then. But the Guernsey law is entirely new – Guernsey had no competition law before this, so it is a big change to our role there. We've moved from being a regulator that looks after particular sectors to being the enforcer of rules that apply across the economy, which creates a different profile and means we have much more interaction with individual members of the public and more of a job explaining our approach and our role to a broader range of businesses.

What is the current situation with regard to the 4G licenses?

We issued a consultation paper in April that was retracted in May at the request of the States of Guernsey – the new Commerce and Employment Minister had identified that the use of spectrum was a pretty key element to the potential for economic development in Guernsey, and didn't want us to continue with a consultation that might have conflicted with that development. At the end of this year we are expecting to receive a document from the States of both islands outlining their vision for how spectrum might be used, and depending on what that says, we'd expect to restart the consultation on the use of the new 4G bands early in the new year. Considering EE has rolled out 4G in the UK, with the other operators following in 2013, we would like to make sure we are in a position for those spectrum bands to be in use in the Channel Islands soon thereafter.

With a review into school uniforms and petrol pricing, is CICRA now ‘showing more teeth' to benefit the consumer?

We have a duty to deliver for consumers in the islands, so we are focusing on the issues that affect them – looking at areas where household expenditure is very high, often where there's a difference between the prices in the UK and the islands – and trying to work out why that is and if there is a way of increasing competition so those prices come down. School uniforms and petrol pricing are two of the areas where we feel that is the case.

And finally, what else are you looking at?

Aside from the work on telecoms, post and electricity we've already covered, the main thing we announced recently is a review of grocery prices at the request of the Economic Development Department in Jersey. An important part of the study will be about diagnosing what, if anything, justifies price differences between the islands and the UK. There is a perception by some consumers that they are being ripped off, and we need to get to the bottom of that.

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