UK Royal Mail price controls delayed

Postcomm, which had been due to publish the price controls for 2006-10 this month, rejected suggestions the delay until next week was due to rows with Royal Mail and the government. It said its work had been put back by the amount of material submitted during its consultation on the price control proposals.

The delay coincides with parliamentary criticism of the consumer watchdog Postwatch, and its energy equivalent, Energywatch. The two industry-funded statutory bodies are “performing feebly”, a report by the public accounts select committee concludes today. The MPs state that, despite the government’s decision to set up the two consumer bodies in 2000, “huge numbers of complaints, particularly relating to wrong energy bills and mail lost by Royal Mail, continue to pour in”.