Tag: Europe

Semi-private Royal Mail?

Posted by | May 14, 2008 | |

The Postal Regulator is calling for Royal Mail to be partly privatised.

Postcomm is making the highly contentious proposal – which could lead to Royal Mail being owned in part by a private-equity firm – to an independent review on the future of postal services that has been set up by the government.

It says that Royal Mail’s financial difficulties are likely to worsen considerably, without the injection of private-sector capital and management expertise into the state-owned business.

Nigel Stapleton, the chairman of Postcomm, has warned in an interivew with me that in the absence of part-privatisation the government may be required to inject a big new subsidy into Royal Mail, which it won’t wish to do.

The risk of not bringing in the private sector or a subsidy would be a significant deterioration in the quality of Royal Mail’s service under its obligation to deliver letters to and from anywhere in the UK at a uniform tariff, he said.

Only last week Royal Mail announced that it had made a loss on providing this so-called universal service for the first time. Royal Mail estimated that the loss for the last financial year on this its core activity was GBP 100m.

The government will find it hard to dismiss the suggestion out of hand, especially since analysts believe the independent review led by Richard Hooper is expected to come to the same conclusion.

However the Prime Minister is likely to be irked that such a divisive issue is being forced back on to his agenda.

Privatisation in any form, whole or part, is strongly opposed by the CWU, the main postal workers’ union – which is also a leading funder of the Labour Party.

The CWU’s opposition is shared by many Labour MPs.

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Understanding the postal needs of small businesses (UK). L13982

Posted by | May 14, 2008 | |

The UK’s 4 million small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are an important sector – rightly described as the engine room of the economy. This sector has, however, been largely ignored in terms of developments in their postal services since competition was introduced. The competitive battle ground has, until now, been tightly focussed on winning the business of the bulk mailing companies.

Postwatch, the watchdog for postal services, commissioned RS Consulting to research the way SMEs both use the postal services and how they could see them changing. Postwatch has today published on its website the results “SMEs’ current and future postal needs”. Visit www.postwatch.co.uk/research to see the report.

Speaking at a Postcomm seminar organised to discuss last year’s strike action by Royal Mail employees Millie Banerjee, CBE, Chair of Postwatch said; “The research Postwatch publishes today highlights that as well as their ‘sending’ needs SMEs also rely heavily on the mail they receive. For these businesses the cheques really are in the post and they want them delivered as early as possible. They also want there to be a significant gap between the daily delivery of post and the last collection of the day, so that they can respond in day.

“Last year’s strike action would have been very worrying for many small businesses. If it had continued some small businesses may have struggled to recover. Royal Mail has to find a better way to resolve its disputes.

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Industry chiefs to debate key issues at World Mail & Express conference

Posted by | May 14, 2008 | |

Over 40 leading senior executives from the express and parcels industry in Europe and around the world head the speakers’ list for the World Mail & Express Europe Conference in Budapest on May 19-21, 2008.

The agenda at the 2008 conference includes two days of critical debate, high-level discussion and excellent networking opportunities for all sections of the industry. The overall theme of the conference will be “Re-defining Mail & Express” with topics under discussion such as globalisation and liberalisation, new business models and new revenue opportunities, the environmental challenge, and how ‘intelligence’ needs to be built into new products and services.

Among the top-level speakers are host Pal Szabo (CEO Hungary Post), Ulrich Gygi (CEO Swiss Post), Massimo Sarmi (CEO Italy Post), Jürgen Höfling (CEO DHL Global Mail), Dr. Andreas Taprantzis (CEO Hellenic Post), Motshoanetsi Lefoka (CEO South Africa Post), Hans Boon (CEO HayPost) and Avi Hochman (CEO Israel Post).

The World Mail & Express Europe Conference, which is accompanied by the World Mail & Express Europe Exhibition, is targeted at decision-makers in the express and parcels industry, industry suppliers and customers from all industries. CEP-Research is an official Media Supporter for the event.

On the eve of 19 May the 2008 World Mail Awards will be presented to the industry’s top performers and innovators. Widely acknowledged as the industry’s opportunity to reward and recognise best practice, the World Mail Awards gala dinner attracts around 300 of the top executives from the postal world. 12 award categories ensure that winners come from over 120 applications from 38 different countries.

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Royal Mail axes 37 post offices (UK)

Posted by | May 13, 2008 | |

Royal Mail is axing 37 post offices across County Durham, Teesside and North Yorkshire.

A Royal Mail spokesman said the first closures were scheduled to take place towards the end of June.

Areas affected include Darlington, Bishop Auckland, Spennymoor, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Northallerton and Richmond.

In addition to the closures, another two branches in North Yorkshire are being replaced by limited services in village halls.

The closure decision follows a six-week consultation process.

Adrian Wales, post office network development manager for the North East, said 99 pct of people in the region would still be within one mile of a branch, or would see no change to their existing services.

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