> staffed by those who couldn't make it as civil servants

Still civil service.

> I'd be surprised if anyone who works there has ever used the internet

They do, but the pricks who created the law are/were reactionary politicians, who couldn’t be bothered to actually draft decent laws.

Ofwat and ofgem are different issues, they have suffered regulatory capture.

Ofwat has the power to bankrupt the entire water system. Which is great, but then the government would have to bail out the shareholders. which means not only higher taxes, but no private investment for large scale. Oh and ballooning public debt.

Which means stagflation, well harder stagflation. There is a ton more to this.

Don't get me wrong it needs reform, but that costs money. We need to have the money to hire decent staff. But with the impeding cuts and what ever dipshittery from Reform next, thats not going to happen

In the UK and Ireland, a distinction is generally made between public servants, who are paid by government appropriation, and civil servants, who are employed directly by government departments and the organisations they directly control and fund.

they're not civil servants, because the the organisations were deliberately created to be separate from whitehall

(and ministerial interference)

Looked this up. They’re not part of the civil service transfer scheme so I think you are 100% correct. They also in theory have their own corporate structure but since they literally publish documents explaining how to map it to civil service grades I think it’s fair to say the overall experience isn’t that different. But different tenure, different pension, they’re not civil servants.

ofwat is shortly to be abolished

(whether or not that will help is another matter)