Tag: Domestic

Temporary, alternative post offices open for evacuated areas

Posted by | Oct 23, 2007 | |

The U.S. Postal Service has been unable to deliver mail to hundreds of thousands of homes because of the wildfires burning across Southern California, postal officials said.
Fire, wind and smoke halted mail service to many neighborhoods abandoned across Southern California because of mandatory evacuations ordered by fire officials.

Postal Service spokesman Richard Maher said 25 post offices were closed Tuesday, mostly in San Diego and San Bernardino counties.

He said deliveries to 478,096 homes and businesses throughout Southern California could not be made. One post office in Green Valley Lake, near Lake Arrowhead, burned down.

Maher said postal officials were setting up alternative post offices where evacuees could pick up their mail.

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Postcomm publishes revised proposals on Royal Mail's redirections service

Posted by | Oct 23, 2007 | |

Postcomm, the independent regulator for postal services, has published its proposals on Royal Mail’s redirections service.

In the fully competitive market, where rivals of Royal Mail are also able to offer their own collection and delivery services, redirection arrangements need to be broadened to allow those rivals to redirect mail. Postcomm has consulted on how this could be achieved within the constraints of data protection rules.

Some of the recommendations Postcomm is making are:

– Royal Mail be required to share the redirections data with other licensed operators who wish to provide a redirections service;
– Once an operator chooses to access redirections data, it must provide a redirections service for its area of operations;
– Royal Mail share the data with other licensed operators from its business diversion service (which Postcomm considers is essentially a subset of the redirections service);
– Other operators wishing to provide a redirections service should be allowed to update their senders with the new address of their customers where the appropriate consent has been given; and
– All licensed operators will be able to not redirect mail if they have explicit instructions to that effect from the sender.

Every year, around 1.3 million households and businesses use Royal Mail’s redirections service, and there are approximately 800,000 redirections “live” on the company’s books at any one time.

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Consultations start in Scotland on changes to Post Office network

Posted by | Oct 23, 2007 | |

Post Office Ltd today opened the first local public consultations in Scotland on changes to the Post Office network needed to meet UK Government requirements. Proposals for the future provision of Post Office services in Greater Glasgow, Central Scotland and Argyll & Bute have been published today and will remain open for consultation for six weeks until 3 December 2007.

Under the Area Plan Proposals published today, 99.9 pct of the population will either see no change to their nearest branch, or will remain within one mile (by road distance) of an alternative branch.

Post Office Ltd is seeking views on the proposed future service provision in Greater Glasgow, Central Scotland and Argyll & Bute, including, in particular, views on access to Post Office services, the accessibility of alternative branches to those proposed for closure and the appropriate form of rural outreach service to be provided.

In addition to the 264 Post Office branches which are proposed to remain open in Greater Glasgow, Central Scotland and Argyll & Bute, three branches in rural Stirlingshire will be replaced with a form of outreach services. The plan also proposes a reduction of 44 branches from the present number of 308.

The plan includes proposed outreach services in three communities in rural Stirlingshire – Buchlyvie, Thornhill and Gargunnock.

Possible types of outreach service could include a mobile service visiting small communities at set times, a hosted service operated within third party premises for restricted hours each week, or a partner service within the premises of a local partner (such as a shop).

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Post Office (UK) earmarks 44 closures

Posted by | Oct 23, 2007 | |

The Post Office wants to reduce the number of branches in Argyll and Bute by seven, Greater Glasgow by 27 and Central Scotland by 10.

There will be a six-week consultation period to give communities a chance to air their views on the closures.

Plans for post office provision for other parts of Scotland will be announced next year.

The closure list for the Highlands is expected in January, the list for the Western and Northern Isles in March, and for the north-east, Tayside and Fife in April. Other areas will be announced in June and July next year.

The consultation on the future of the first earmarked post offices will remain open for six weeks until 3 December.

The plans are part of a wider restructuring of post office services throughout the UK.

Post office workers told the BBC Scotland news website that they were being prevented from talking to the media about the closures.

Some also revealed that they had yet to receive any official notification of the proposals and only learned their jobs might be under threat when leaflets about the closures were delivered to branches at the weekend.

The first closures are expected to take place in February 2008 with all changes expected to be completed by the end of that year.

There are 308 post office branches in Greater Glasgow, Central Scotland and Argyll & Bute.

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Breakthrough in postal row

Posted by | Oct 22, 2007 | |

An end to the bitter postal workers’ dispute is in sight after union leaders ratified a deal on pay and modernisation aimed at halting months of disruption to mail deliveries.

Around 130,000 members of the Communication Workers Union will now vote on whether to accept the agreement and break the deadlocked row which has cost the Royal Mail tens of millions of pounds and hit domestic and business customers across the UK.

Business groups and the Government welcomed the breakthrough, although MPs on a select committee examining the dispute reported “anger” among workers at the way management had behaved.

The Royal Mail said the deal involved a 5.4 pct pay rise over two years, plus 1.5 pct next year when agreed reforms to the service are delivered.

The retirement age will increase from 60 to 65 and the final salary pension scheme will close to new members from January, to be replaced with a defined contribution scheme. Pension pots built up before next April will be protected.

Royal Mail said there will be full co-operation on the deployment of new technology, while staff will cover for one another within a unit to help absorb a colleague’s absence or an increase in workload.

Business Secretary John Hutton told the Trade and Industry Select Committee the deal was affordable and would help Royal Mail cut costs. He acknowledged the dispute had damaged Royal Mail and lost the firm customers and said he believed industrial action was not justified.

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