Post shake-up failed to deliver

In response to Rob Furber’s article on the deregulation of the postal service (PM, January 15), I’d like to register the view that everyone is pretty much in agreement that yes, we need to deregulate, but that to follow this through with a decision to reduce the weight limit to 150g makes a mockery of the whole process. I fail to understand what all the years of debate have been about if we are going to end up with a decision that is so insignificant in the market as to make it almost pointless.
Effectively, this decision still allows the Post Office to hang on to its protected status. It is only releasing to outside contractors the upper weight, expensive end of handling and sorting mail and it is keeping the cost-efficient, machine-handled mail of fewer than 150gm to itself.
The Post Office gets to keep the cream while the competition licks its lips but doesn’t get a taste. At the same time, the Post Office continues to abuse its monopoly, by openly vying for fulfilment and direct mail contracts and giving special discounts to win the business.
We need a real shake-up of the Post Office; it has hung on to its protected status quo since the 19th century and it’s about time we saw change. Competition is a healthy business pressure; it keeps costs keen, encourages good management and best use of resources and it stimulates attention to customer service.
I believe that it is in the interests of the mailing industry as a whole that Royal Mail is opened up to competition. I do not agree that the introduction of rival services will force postal rates to rise, nor do I think this eventuality would lead to the demise of paperbased communication.
The way to maintain the market share that monopoly postal services have enjoyed should be to operate a superior service that people want to use and that is cost effective within an industry that has pruned its overheads – something it should have done years ago.
John Burbidge, Managing director, SR Communications, London
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PRECISION MARKETING, 05th February 2001