Tag: Royal Mail

Post Office still needs to deliver improved services;Analysis

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

The Post Office is said to be the best known brand in the UK after Coca-Cola. It is also the country’s biggest retail chain. But it is also an organisation that loses a million items of its customers’ business per week; delivers a service at midday – when most recipients have gone to work; does not take credit cards; offers bureaux de change without computer access to exchange rates; and one that many people only visit because they have to.

The Post Office has, by any measure, much to do to catch up with the rest of the world.

And there is little time in which to do it. Postcomm, the regulator, has insisted that competition should dawn, despite the efforts of the Post Office and the Government to resist the substantial reduction of the monopoly that is sought by the European Union.

Postcomm made clear this week that a cut of the monopoly is not the only route to competition. Rival businesses will soon be able to win licences for parts of the Post Office business. The power to grant those licences begins in March when the Post Office becomes a plc, albeit one entirely owned by the Government, and the postal consumers’ group gains greater powers.

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Hundreds of post offices to shut in Scotland

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

Hundreds of post offices across Scotland are set to be closed as part of government plans to be announced this week.

AlistairDarling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, will reveal the response to a consultation on closures which campaigners believe will spell the end for as many as 800 branches in Scotland. Pensioners’ groups and rural communities have been outraged by the programme they fearwill cut off many people from vital services.

However, the government insists the network is losing millions of pounds every week and is impossible to sustain. Around 2500 post offices are understood to be closing out of a total of 14,000 in the UK but with a high proportion in Scotland. Between one-quarter and one-third of all closures are believed to be north of the border.

Figures from consumer group Postwatch show the number of post offices in Britain has fallen from 18,393 in 1999 to 14,376 in 2005.

Last June there were 1676 post offices in Scotland – 1117 in rural areas and 559 in urban areas.

Mr Darling has said many remote post offices which do not meet the criteria will be allowed to remain open but hundreds are still expected to close.

New criteria over how far away people should be expected to live from their nearest post office will change and the closures are expected by hit urban as well as rural areas.

Under the new rules, 95per cent of the urban population will be within one mile of a post office and in rural areas 95per cent should be within three miles and in remote areas 95per cent within six miles.

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Lifeline for post offices threatened with closure

Posted by | May 13, 2007 | |

When the elderly postmistress in the Kent village of Sutton Valence decided to sell up in 1986, Gary Coyle was probably not on her list of target buyers.

Having left a tough comprehensive school in Northampton at the age of 15 without any qualifications, he became a chef and began an extraordinary journey. It took him from the Queen Eleanor hotel in Northampton to a head chef at the Mark Warner company, cooking at the exclusive ski resorts of Verbier and Meribel.

But after catering, he became attracted to the mail business when the village post office went up for sale near to the home of his in-laws. That was more than 20 years ago. He has never looked back, but many other postmasters have not found the going so easy.

As the only shop in the village, his business is thriving, but other rural post offices are not so lucky. About 2,500 are under threat of closure and Coyle is now leading a mission to save them.

He is aware that it will not be an easy task. The 14,200-strong post-office network loses about Pounds 4m a week and is propped up only by government subsidy.

Post offices that make money tend to be the larger ones in busy urban areas.

Coyle has tried a post-office initiative before, and failed – the Postmasternetwork that aimed to boost the average income of a sub-postmaster by Pounds 5,000 a year by finding new revenue streams. When he pulled the plug on the operation in January, he cleared all its debts, but lost Pounds 100,000 of his own cash in the process. That venture was backed by high-profile City figures, who prefer not to divulge their identities.

Coyle remains undeterred. He has now teamed up with Mail Boxes Etc, part of United Parcel Service (UPS), the international courier-services giant, in a plan to set up new post-office franchises under the Mail Boxes name.

Mail Boxes already has 105 post offices in the UK and Ireland but is desperate to expand. Coyle is leading the initiative on their behalf and being paid a retainer.

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Post chief in GBP 1.2bn threat

Posted by | May 13, 2007 | |

Royal Mail is threatening to freeze GBP 1.2bn in crucial investments if its employees vote next month for a national strike.

Faced by a rapidly shrinking market and growing competition, the postal service is determined to end antiquated working practices.

But an all-out strike, the first for ten years, would have a devastating effect by further boosting competition from private companies that are soon expected to handle one in five letters and parcels.

The confrontation comes as Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling confirms plans to close 2,500 small post offices.

The postal workers’ union has already rejected a pay offer of 2.5% or a GBP 600 lump sum payment for the year and is instead demanding a 27% rise and a shorter working week. Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier says he will not go ahead with the company’s five-year investment plan agreed in February unless 130,000 workers agree to management’s ‘final’ offer, which is conditional on changes in working practices.

This means that giant sophisticated sorting machines, which offer the key to major productivity gains, will not be put into main sorting offices.

Even if the unions agree to the package, about 40,000 jobs are expected to go during the upgrades. Royal Mail warns more jobs could be lost after a prolonged dispute.

The company is prepared to announce a sharp drop in its annual operating profits for the year ending March 31 compared with profits of GBP 355m the year before. In the past half-year, profits slumped 86% to GBP 22m.

The Communications Workers Union will start balloting members this week and the result is expected to be announced on June 7.

Royal Mail believes winning this battle is vital to its survival. It sees changes in working conditions as essential, particularly ending early-morning shifts, traditionally starting before 6am, when workers are given an allowance but there is no mail to sort.

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Axe falls on thousands of post offices

Posted by | May 13, 2007 | |

The government will this week announce the closure of 2,500 post offices across the country as part of plans to stem losses of GBP 4m a week across the 14,000 strong network.

Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling will release the government’s response to a six-month consultation on the network, indicating where offices will be lost and what measures will be taken to support those that are left.
At the same time, the Communication Workers Union is preparing to launch a ballot for strike action across its 140,000 membership at Royal Mail in a dispute over pay. The union plans to issue notification of the ballot on Tuesday if talks with Royal Mail on the current 2.5 per cent offer on Monday fail to reach a breakthrough.

There are also plans for a ballot among staff at main Crown post offices over plans to move 85 offices into WH Smith stores, while members at Post Office Cash Services, the division that handles and transports money from branches, are threatening a ballot over pay as well. A union source said there could be strikes across the mail and postal sector.

A spokesman for the National Federation of Sub Postmasters said half the government closures were expected in rural areas and half in towns and cities.
The government has indicated that if the post office network were a purely commercial organisation, it would run only 4,000 branches. However, it accepts that it also has a social role.

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