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Postcomm, the regulator for Britain’s mail system, will see its costs spiral from pounds 5.94m in 2002-03 to pounds 10.2m in 2004-05, according to the organisation’s annual report. The regulator is funded mainly by the Royal Mail, which is owned by the Government, and any increase in costs must be approved by the Department of Trade & Industry. Yesterday a spokesman for the organisation said that the money would be spent on extra consultants to look at whether the price of stamps will be increased. “We have a very small number of staff, so we tend to employ consultants,” he said. The bill for “outside consultants, lawyers etc” is expected to increase from pounds 2.22m in the last year to pounds 5.3m next.

Royal Mail could lose its monopoly on delivering letters years early after a damning report found it beset by ‘abysmal failures’. Rival companies may be allowed to run competing postal services sooner than planned because of the’ dramatic decline’ in standards. The market was not due to be opened for three years, but regulators are considering introducing competition much earlier to give longsuffering customers a choice. Postal watchdog Postcomm made the announcement yesterday in its annual report which concluded that Royal Mail standards were ‘deteriorating’. Postcomm’s chief executive, Martin Stanley, said ‘We are examining the possibility that we might open the whole market much earlier than our original date of April 2007.’