A week in the life of Sarah Chambers – Postcomm
When the price of a first-class stamp rises by 2p tomorrow to 32p, consumers will have the Postal Services Commission to thank.
Sarah Chambers, chief executive of the independent regulator for the postal market, used diplomatic rather than triumphalist language to describe the deal she helped secure on our behalf.
She said Royal Mail had wanted “slightly higher increases”, with the price of a first-class stamp rising to 39p within four years. Postcomm’s compromise was to allow Royal Mail to impose further possible price hikes up to a cap of 36p by 2010.
Chambers, 47, a career civil servant, was happy with the outcome of two years of bargaining, which culminated in a flat-out day of telephone negotiations. “I think I spoke to practically every key stakeholder, at very senior levels, including Adam Crozier (chief executive of Royal Mail), the Department of Trade and Industry, the unions and the chairman of Royal Mail’s pension-fund trustees.
“Essentially, the increase is our decision. Royal Mail could either accept or appeal to the Competition Commission. It accepted.”
This episode in Postcomm’s relationship with the near-monopoly operator was positively serene compared with another recent confrontation. In February Postcomm proposed penalties against Royal Mail totalling Pounds 13.8m, for customer- service deficiencies and other failures. Chambers gave a string of robust television and radio interviews in support of the judgment.
Now she awaits Royal Mail’s formal response, with the option of legal appeals to come.
Royal Mail’s chairman, Allan Leighton, has already issued a furious riposte over a proposed Pounds 2.16m penalty slapped on it for allegedly securing unfair commercial advantage over new operators. He described the report, on which the judgment was based, as “shoddy, from a grandstanding regulator who is looking to micro-manage the entire postal industry. It is full of unsubstantiated and subjective views, not based in fact … almost Monty Pythonesque .”
Chambers gives no ground. She said Postcomm was simply fulfilling its statutory duties, which include promoting competition. On January 1 the regulator ended the 350-year monopoly of Royal Mail and its predecessors, by giving other operators access to the mail market.
Chambers took up her Pounds 95,000-a-year job at Postcomm in November 2004 after previously heading the DTI’s Automotive Unit, handling relations between government and the motor industry.
“Having to impose penalties on Royal Mail gives me no pleasure; it’s a horrible thing to have to do,” she said. “But I think in recent months the improvement in service quality has been quite apparent.”
