Postcomm publishes consultation on Royal Mail’s application

Condition 21 of Royal Mail’s licence sets obligations in relation to the prices that Royal Mail is able to charge for a set of regulated postal services.

Condition 21 of Royal Mail’s licence sets obligations in relation to the prices that Royal Mail is able to charge for a set of regulated postal services.

Postcomm has published a consultation on Royal Mail Letter’s proposal to launch an environmentally friendly retail product, Sustainable Mail.

Royal Mail Letters wrote to Postcomm in October 2008 about the launch of the product, and sought clarification about how it would be treated with respect to its price control obligations specified in Condition 21 of its licence.

Postcomm is proposing that Condition 21 should be modified to enable Royal Mail to provide Sustainable Mail and maintain a minimum level of headroom, as determined by the existing Condition 21, between the equivalent Sustainable Mail access products and the Sustainable Mail retail products.

Royal Mail Wholesale launched the Sustainable Mail access product in October 2008 and offered customers a reduction on the existing access prices if they met certain criteria specified by Royal Mail. The discount was 0.3p per item for customers who meet the entry level criteria and 0.7p per item for those who meet the intermediate level criteria.

Stakeholders are invited to respond to this consultation by 2 March 2009, and Postcomm expects to issue a decision by the end of March 2009.