The Slimming Down Of Royal Mail
As Postcomm examines the way in which deregulation of postal services in the UK is progressing, one proposal being considered is the splitting of Royal Mail's collection and delivery service. All those involved in the postal business are being asked for their opinion in order that Postcomm can put together a workable plan for the next phase of deregulation.
Royal Mail still holds the monopoly on postal delivery in the UK and it seems likely that this will remain so in the future, but Postcomm is trying to ensure that competitors have equal access to Royal Mail's delivery network wand at the same time reduce the amount of red tape which Royal Mail is currently governed by.
Certainly the postal market will continue to evolve – and not without problems either. Last year saw a bitter dispute between Royal Mail and its workforce over plans to restructure working hours, pay and conditions to enable it to compete and whilst some degree of victory was heralded by both sides, the changes at Royal Mail, like the entire postal market, are probably the tip of the iceberg.
Notable by its absence in the press (other than calls for a march on government from the Socialist Worker) is the ongoing postal dispute at Burslem where hundreds of managers have been brought in to keep the mail movng. The suspension of union representatives and other workers over a bullying and harassment case prompted a walk out by workers. Those on strike claim that Royal Mail is using heavy-handed tactics in a 'union busting' excercise and unwilling to bring in outside help to solve the dispute. Accusations of a'cover up' by some workers have done little to engage the interest of journalists. Few seem remotely interested and the case has rarely been mentioned in the national press – overshadowed perhaps by the ongoing saga of Post Office closures.
Royal Mail though, looks increasingly likely to become the nations postal paper round as Postcomm looks at new ways to fire up interest in what should be a lucrative business opportunity for other postal operators. It just doesn't seem to be taking off in quite the way it was envisaged, complicated no doubt by all the regulation and sensitivity surrounding the universal service obligation and the fact that Royal Mail remains state-owned.
Perhaps the concept of splitting Royal Mail would push it further towards privatisation but for the moment, there seems little appetite for a complete sell-off and all previous attempts to do so have been scuppered by back benchers and the unions. It would just upset too many people.
That said, the gradual changes are being seen by many as a stealth approach to a sell-off, gradually bringing Royal Mail to a position where there is no other way forward. At the moment, Royal Mail is a state owned postal service chaired by a man with commercial experience and radical ideas, but so far, Allan Leighton's ideas to modernise the business are to some extent, being held back by regulation and a union-entrenched workforce. However, the gradual erosion of Royal Mail's monopoly and with Postcomm now lowering the licence fee for smaller operators to a mere fifty quid, the CWU will find itself with less and less to hang on to.
My local postie is now a memory. Parts of his round were recently absorbed into a larger one and now we have 'Jason'. In the first week we've had our post delivered streets away – including credit card statements.
The problem is, no one seems to give a fig any more. This is all about the reallocation of profits and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that a postie who knows his 'walk' is probably the most valuable part of any public relations exercise – now being tossed around and lost in a sea of competition and profit.
