Mail & Express – the convergence of the parcels market
Robin Parr-Davies, Express Director, Triangle Management Services
World Mail Review May 2008
Tag: Royal Mail
Royal Mail Group’s health and wellbeing ‘blueprint’ could provide GBP 1.45 billion boost to UK’s struggling sectors
Innovative measures help the organisation cut absence by 25 pct and save GBP 227 million in three years
Health and wellbeing initiatives introduced by Royal Mail Group could hold the key to reducing the impact of absence across the UK’s worst performing sectors and deliver savings of GBP 1.45 billion a year, a study by the London School of Economics revealed today.
In its ‘ Value of Rude Health’ report – the result of a unique, year-long study – the London School of Economics also calculated that the value of Royal Mail Group’s approach to tackling absence could bring more than 94,000 people absent through illness or injury back into work more quickly.
The study revealed that Royal Mail Group’s health and wellbeing activities have:
• Slashed absence by 25 pct between 2004 and 2007
• Brought 3,600 employees absent through illness or injury back into work
• Saved more than GBP 227 million in terms of direct costs (wages and benefits)
Royal Mail Group’s success in cutting absence by a quarter has been achieved through:
• Health screening for employees and occupational support services including physio and occupational therapy
• Health clinics in more than 90 Royal Mail Group sites to help people return to work and prevent them getting ill
• Fitness centres run by trained instructors in larger sites
• Health promotion campaigns targeting smoking and back pain
• Increased support and training for managers to improve the effectiveness of absence to attendance policies
Postcomm publishes criteria for approval of redress schemes for licensed postal operators (UK)
Postcomm published its final criteria for approval of redress schemes.
Following consultation in January 2008 on approval criteria for redress schemes, Postcomm has today published its approval criteria and decision document. The document summarises the key issues raised by stakeholders in response to the consultation, suggestions from the industry working group for licensed postal operators (facilitated by Postcomm), and relevant best practice.
The key changes are:
– amendment to the scheme’s governance, monitoring and reporting criteria in relation to the governance arrangements and fee structure to ensure there is no disproportionate effect on any particular group of members;
– additional requirement for the scheme to reallocate the cost of any case to another scheme member where the fault is found to lie with it;
– amendment to the requirement for publicising the redress scheme to prevent premature referral to the scheme. The requirement now states that appropriate steps must be taken to ensure consumer awareness of the scheme;
– clarifying the complaints which the redress scheme must consider by drawing from the BERR decision document; and clarifying that the case handling will be free of charge but that a complainant may incur a cost in the form of telephone call charges etc. to contact the redress scheme (but that this should be kept to as low as reasonably practicable).
Postal regulator needs to deliver the goods (UK)
Postcomm is seeking a new Chief Executive for November, when Sarah Chambers, ends her four-year term.
But what sort of job will the successful applicant take over? I hear whispers of some sort of reorganisation that is under consideration to create a “super-regulator” to transfer some of Postcomm’s responsibilities across to Ofcom, which at present oversees only the Royal Mail’s broadband activities.
“This is entirely a matter for the Government,” Ofcom insists.
Postcomm says that there is no change to the job specifications as they are advertised, which call for “a forward-thinking CEO … at a time when the postal market is undergoing profound change”. My informant insists whoever gets the top Postcomm job “is not going to be head-to-head with Allan Leighton [the Royal Mail chairman].”
Read MoreCWU – Postal regulation crippling Royal Mail (UK)
The Communication Workers Union which represents most postal workers at Royal Mail, has responded to Postcomm’s Strategy Review for further changes to the UK postal market.
The CWU, which has been a consistent critic of the liberalisation of the UK postal market, says that deregulation in the UK was too soon and that Postcomm has put the pursuit of competition ahead of safeguarding the USO.
The union said it was also strongly opposed to any ownership separation of Royal Mail’s activities. The CWU did not agree such separation has been successful in other regulated industries and did not see a need for greater accounting transparency and that moves to split Royal Mail should not be at the expense of an efficient and integrated Royal Mail.
It accused Postcomm of misjudging the postal market and that current declining mail volumes were not predicted in the last Price Control, resulting in significantly lower than anticipated profit levels. On downstream access, the CWU said that volumes had grown faster than forecast leaving Royal Mail struggling financially and calling for a reduction in the scope of the USO and an increase in stamp prices. It said that cost-reflective pricing measures had become necessary, resulting in requests for unpopular and divisive pricing structures such as zonal pricing. It called for a wider debate about the kind of postal service customers want before such measures are imposed.
The CWU was highly critical of Postcomm’s proposed erosion of the minimum standards required of new entrants under the licensing framework, saying it would leave customers with insufficient protections in place. The union called on the introduction of a mandatory publication of directly comparable performance data introduced as a licence condition for all postal operators, saying it would address the current unequal treatment of Royal Mail in terms of the monitoring of standards and enable customers to make informed choices in the market.
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