Human Resources Policy
Background
The Postal Services Commission (Postcomm) was established in January 2000. Like the other economic regulators, it is a non-Ministerial Government Department, and not part of a mainstream department such as DTI. Its principal duties are to:
introduce competition for the Royal Mail (cf Oftel introducing competition for BT in the 1980s),
control Royal Mail prices and service standards, and
(following the recent PIU report) advise the Government on how to maintain the network of rural and deprived urban post offices.
Postcomm’s work is of the highest political and social importance. In particular:
almost every citizen interacts almost every day with Post Office services,
there is great political and social interest in the future of the rural post office network, and
postal services are of vital importance to many companies, for whom the Royal Mail is their main communication channel with their customers.
Postcomm is also under considerable time pressure. Our predecessors were all asked to regulate markets where the Government had already:
decided the way in which competition was to be introduced into the market,
issued the initial licence to the privatised company, and
set the initial price control.
In contrast, all these jobs, in the case of postal services, fall to Postcomm. We must publish the first Post Office licence this month (Jan 2001) and it is expected that we will deliver independent analysis and recommendations on the scope for increasing competition during the summer of 2001. In addition, we have already been asked to take on extra work as a result of the PIU report on the post office network and make our first recommendations in Spring 2001.
Staff Structure and Job Evaluation
Postcomm’s current structure is loosely based upon that of DTI.
Reporting to the Chief Executive there were in October 2000 24 staff in 4 bands, i.e.:
5 members of the Senior Civil Service,
7 Deputy Directors etc. in band A (old G6/7)
9 policy, finance, HR etc. managers in band B (old EO-SEO)
3 support and administrative staff in band C
It is currently expected that Postcomm will employ a little over 40 staff by the summer of 2001.
This structure is deliberately “top heavy” as full use is being made of job flexibility and IT in order to reduce administrative costs. Where necessary, temporary staff are recruited to meet peak workloads.
Bearing in mind the small size of the organisation, we will wish to look out for opportunities to allocate high performing staff to more demanding duties within a pay band, and so to a higher personal pay scale. Promotions from one band to another will be subject to rigorous checks, generally involving a promotion board including non-Postcomm staff.
We intend to use an independent assessor to ensure that individual jobs are properly weighted and remunerated. It is intended that the evaluation will be completed in Q2 2001 by which time we will be beyond our first statutory deadline (publication of the Post Office’s draft licence – which must take management priority), and individual job descriptions will have stabilised. (Jobs descriptions are currently changing very frequently as we learn more about our responsibilities, and as new colleague arrive to share those responsibilities.)
