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Another week, another collection of revolting videos of sewage being pumped out into one of our rivers, this time the Thames.

Another week and another set of stories in the business pages about the financial troubles of the UK's biggest water company.

Thames again as it happens.

What's gone wrong with Thames water?

How does it reflect on what's happening to the whole of our water industry?

What can we do about it and who would have to pay?

Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out.

To begin with, I want to take a closer look at the crisis hit Thames Water

and find out whether the problems they're experiencing are shared by other companies.

Joining me in the briefing room, a Kate Bayliss,

research associate in the Department of Economics at SOAS University of London,

and David Hall, visiting professor in the Public Services International Research Unit

at the University of Greenwich.

David Hall, how many water companies are there in the UK?

In the UK altogether, there's about 17. There's two public companies. One is in Northern Ireland, where it's run by public sector.

One is in Scottish water, where it's run by the public sector. Then there's Welsh water and a much smaller one in Wales.

And then there's nine water and sewage companies in England and four small water-only companies.

Are these divided by geographical area?

The big ones that we're all mainly concerned with, they're based on river basins, so big areas,

and they were designed like that. It was very enlightened at the time in the 1970s, to revive for integrated river basin management.

So the water resources and the sewage pollution was managed together to get a good result.

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