Praying for the post
MAIL delivery in Britain hasn't changed that much since WH Auden wrote about "the night mail crossing the border" in the 1930s.
What Auden could never have predicted, though, is the pressure his beloved Post Office would come under from alternative forms of communication and other businesses eager to get their hands on our mail.
The poet's "letters of joy from girl and boy" are now more likely to be delivered by email or text message, while "the cheque and the postal order" could soon be sent by private enterprises such as TNT and Hays, if the purchaser did not use a credit card instead.
Meanwhile the Post Office, or Consignia as it now prefers to be known, bumbles on its own sweet way. But a timebomb is ticking under its mail monopoly, and its performance is actually getting worse.
Last week, Consignia announced its third consecutive year of worsening mail deliveries, along with a trading loss for last year and 62,000 days work lost to industrial action – a substantial slice of the entire nation's time on strike.
Postal volumes also grew less fast than Consignia predicted, costing the company £60m in revenue. Disillusioned consumers are increasingly relying on their mobile phones and email, rather than letters that seldom get through on time.
Peter Carr, chairman of postal watchdog PostWatch, describes the business as a "monopolistic dinosaur", and says that, until greater competition is introduced, Consignia's mail delivery service (still called the Royal Mail) will not get any better.
"It is a problem with the culture of the organisation," he says. "This is a business that finds change extremely difficult."
The organisation is about to have change thrust upon it, however, thanks to a new postal regulator that has been set up to enforce competition in the mail delivery area.
The Post Office has had a monopoly on delivering all letters costing less than £1 to post. Successive governments funked the challenge of scrapping this, usually when confronted with the "threat to rural post offices" scare by a militant union.
However since March, when Consignia gained both its new name and a licence to operate from the regulator, any company with a licence can deliver post in a specified area. So far, only Consignia (save for a few tiny exceptions) has a licence, but the regulator, PostComm, is processing applications from potential competitors. At last, the monopoly may soon come under threat for the first time.
Postcomm has suggested that dairy companies, for example, might operate a postal service along with milk deliveries, or that local bus companies could drop off the mail en route.
Given its history, Consignia is likely to fight any attempt to introduce competition with the same vigour it has shown in resisting attempts at internal reform. It will try to scare PostComm into believing that new entrants will jeopardise the principle of the universal service: that is, mail being delivered all over the country for a single tariff.
Consignia argues that, if the competition "cherry pick" the more lucrative urban delivery areas, then the Royal Mail will be unable to continue delivering a letter to the Outer Hebrides at the same price as delivering it to Kensington and Guildford.
John Roberts, chief executive of Consignia, says: "If the regulator plays fast and loose with licensing, it may fall foul of its principal duty, which is ensuring that we are in a financial state to continue the universal service. This service is very important to us, and to the government."
However, Martin Stanley, chief executive of PostComm, believes that the universal service, far from being a financial burden on the organisation, could actually be a benefit. "The universal service makes sense for the Royal Mail in a commercial way," he says. "
It would not make sense to put up a postbox saying that it doesn't deliver to Stornoway, because the universal service is actually the Royal Mail's unique selling point.
"In the same way as a little old man buying a bar of soap is not a sensible commercial transaction for Tesco, some rural deliveries are not sensible transactions for the Royal Mail. However, they are so mixed up that you can't weed them out."
Stanley argues that Consignia is currently in the same position as British Telecom (which used itself to be part of the Post Office) before the advent of Cable & Wireless and the like.
"You wouldn't recognise BT for what it was then,' he says. "It no longer takes three weeks to get your BT line installed. When competition comes in, companies sort themselves out. You don't even need to switch companies to get a better service. Any organisation has the ability to change, but the managers need to experience stimulus and competition".
One Post Office expert attacks Consignia for its "civil service" mentality. It is now structured like a public company, but has one single shareholder – the government. It is also the only company where the owner of the business tells the directors what the dividend is going to be, rather than the other way round.
It's not a happy arrangement. This year, Consignia failed to hit the government's performance target by £88m and ended up paying a dividend it had not earned.
Performance was also well below target. Nationally, the proportion of first-class letters it claims to have delivered the next day has dropped from 91pc in the year to March 2000 to 89pc this year. Consignia says it has been hit by disruption on the railways and the endemic wildcat strikes among its workers.
John Roberts says that roughly half the problem in performance last year was caused by the rail chaos. "We are not trying to hide behind this," he says. "I still believe that rail is one of the best ways to transport mail in this country, but it is only the best way if it is reliable."
As for the industrial action, it would have put any private sector company out of business. Roberts says the postmen do not realise the effect that encroaching competition could have on their jobs. "We are undergoing an enormous transition," he says.
"What we have to get across to individual branches is that every time they go on strike they damage the organisation, and that means a short-term threat to their jobs. It is very tough to make them understand. Like most human beings, if something is very difficult you don't confront it until it absolutely hits you."
Even Roberts believes that Consignia is "not ready" for the advent of competition. "After three hundred years of monopoly, it is really hard to change the culture of an organisation overnight," he says. "PostComm is beginning to issue the first small licences, and that at least is a tangible sign that something is happening. I believe that competition is a good thing if we can get our act together.
"The domestic market is our most important. In five years' time, I want us to be a company making a good profit and providing customers with a reliable service. I want these industrial problems solved. Then we can justifiably continue to expand internationally."
The question mark seems to hang over whether Consignia can change quickly enough to make Roberts' vision for its future a reality.
As in all big organisations, it is taking a long time to do anything. The company, together with the unions, has commissioned an independent enquiry into industrial action from Lord Sawyer, but there is no obligation for either side to accept his findings or translate them into reality.
The election of Billy Hayes, a leftwing firebrand, as the leader of the Communication Workers Union in May makes peace with the unions look even more unlikely.
Mr Hayes, who replaced John Keggie, who had signed an agreement with Consignia management, has signalled that the regions will get more power. As these are where unofficial strikes originate, Consignia is going to find it very tough to improve on current difficulties.
It's an all too familiar refrain. As we stuff our mail into the red boxes, hoping that it really will reach its destination the next day, rather than next week, we can only hope that the threat of competition will do what successive managements have failed to do, and create a service run for the benefit of the customers, rather than the workforce.
The Daily Telegraph
