New bulletins for January

Frontier's most recently published bulletins cover three very different issues but share a single theme: good decisions are based on hard evidence, even if sometimes this is at odds with conventional wisdom.

In Less is more? Frontier considers a key part of the vision laid out in the UK Government’s 2007 Energy White Paper – a 10-year roll-out of “smart meters” to all customers. This is a challenging programme, particularly if competition in metering services is to be preserved. The bulletin explore s  whether sacrificing this competition would in practice increase the benefits of a smart meter roll-out.

Food for thought asks whether prohibiting TV ads for foods high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) is an appropriate policy response to the growing obesity problem in the UK and other developed economies. While a seemingly easy and attractive solution, a wide range of studies of the impact of similar bans, notably on alcohol ads, indicate that they are ineffective in reducing harmful consumption and may even have perverse effects.

Finally, in Seeing the wood Frontier looks at the problems encountered by companies that assume having more management information must be a good thing. For such companies, “key” performance measures are often anything but, and large amounts of data, collected and circulated for reasons long forgotten, are routinely ignored. Frontier shows how simple tree structures, linking management actions directly to measurable outcomes, can help clear the deadwood and enhance commercial decision-making.