Tag: UK

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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Parcelforce Worldwide extends its parcel redelivery service using advanced self-service technologies from Eckoh

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

Parcelforce Worldwide has significantly extended the scope of its contract with BT and Eckoh, one of Europe’s leading providers of outsourced automated solutions, with a series of innovative enhancements to its parcel redelivery service.

The new and enhanced service builds upon the automated speech recognition solution for redeliveries developed by Eckoh and BT and implemented by Parcelforce Worldwide earlier this year.

The extended redeliveries service will see Eckoh take responsibility for Parcelforce Worldwide’s entire end-to-end redeliveries support service, which includes management of the front end web interface, as well as co-ordinating customer instructions with Parcelforce Worldwide’s delivery depots and customer contact centres. With further developments planned for later this year, customers will soon have the convenience of making payments for additional service options, such as requesting a redelivery on a Saturday or to a different address, using a fully automated telephone based payment system.

The fully hosted service will provide a high level of consistency across all contact channels, whether web or telephone based. The overall solution utilises Eckoh’s extensive speech recognition expertise and self-service technology platform, but also leverages Eckoh’s substantial web design and deployment heritage, which now forms an integral part of the enhanced solution.

Eckoh expects to manage in excess of 1 million calls on behalf of Parcelforce Worldwide during 2007.

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MRS Distribution joins PalletFORCE

Posted by | May 14, 2007 | |

The West Lothian depot of transport company MRS Distribution Ltd has joined PalletFORCE, one of the country’s fastest growing palletised distribution networks, in the long-term interests of the company and its customers.

This is the first time that MRS has been part of a network, a decision driven by business development needs. “Sustainable business from Scotland is hard to find,” explains Commercial Director Ian Wilson, “and we needed a route to get our customers’ smaller consignments into England. Joining a network was the obvious answer.”

MRS Distribution was founded in 1975 and became a limited company in 1983. The company has 350 employees based at 13 locations across the UK.

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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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