Tag: UK

Postal Services: Postcomm calls for views

Posted by | Sep 18, 2006 | |

Postcomm is asking the industry how it should take its strategy forward as it maps out the future of the deregulated mail-delivery marketplace.

The postal services regulator wants to collect views from all interested parties, including domestic customers, suppliers, businesses and postal operators.

Phased deregulation of the postal market began in February 2004 and the market was opened up to full competition in August.

Postcomm’s current regulatory framework, which deals with Royal Mail pricing and service quality, runs until 2010.

The consultation document includes key questions for stakeholders, inviting responses that, together with research, will form the basis of the Postcomm Strategy Review.

Postcomm is also examining how customers’ needs might develop over the next five to 10 years, whether the market will grow, the effects of email and web shopping on the market, and how Royal Mail’s operations impact other operators.

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Industry cannot ignore labour market changes

Posted by | Sep 18, 2006 | |

The scale of recruitment and training activities in freight and logistics is demonstrated by some stark statistics provided by the chairman of a leading recruitment agency for the industry.

“Our sector employs around 33m people in the UK,” says Jim Cleary chairman of Surrey- based recruitment agency George Henderson Recruitment. “If just 10% of these ‘turn over’ each year, that means 330,000 – vacancies to be filled. With the population of the 48 countries that comprise the whole of Europe at 729m, perhaps 17- 18m might be engaged in
transport and related industries plenty of scope. for candidates and recruitment companies alike.”

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Mandatory training is set to grow

Posted by | Sep 18, 2006 | |

Traditionally, training for the industry has been divided into mandatory and voluntary parts. This distinction is likely to disappear, or at least become much less apparent, as the scale of mandatory training is set to grow over the next few years.

A significant example of the changing environment is the introduction of new, tightened mandatory training due to be introduced in 2009 for HGV drivers, says Ian Hetherington, CEO of Skills for Logistics, an organisation established two years ago to raise training standards throughout the logistics chain.

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Six VCs put their stamp on history

Posted by | Sep 17, 2006 | |

Six holders of the Victoria Cross are to be immortalised on a set of stamps to mark the 150th anniversary of the introduction of the medal.

And as a reminder of modern heroism in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presentation pack will include a tribute by Gen Sir Peter de la Billiere, the commander of British Forces in the first Gulf war.

The Royal Mail heroes include Midshipman Charles Lucas, the first person to win the VC. Michael Adams, 61, a broker from Oxfordshire and the great-grandson of Midshipman Lucas, supports the launch of the stamps on Thursday, as does Col Rewati Rai, a soldier in the Indian Army and the son of Cpl Agansing Rai, a Gurkha who won the VC in 1944 for attacking a Japanese machine gun nest in Burma.

Midshipman Lucas was serving on HMS Hecla during the Crimean War when his ship came under fire. When a live shell landed on deck, the 20-year-old grabbed it and hurled it overboard. The shell exploded as it hit the sea, but the sailor’s swift and heroic action saved many lives.

Boy 1st Class John Cornwell was only 16 when, serving in the Royal Navy in the First World War, he died heroically at the Battle of Jutland. Also honoured are Noel Chavasse, a First World War Army doctor; Charles Upham, a New Zealander, who was sent to Colditz; and Albert Ball, a fighter ace who was lost in action in 1917.

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Chief urges swift action over local post offices

Posted by | Sep 16, 2006 | |

The head of the body regulating postal services warned last night rural sub-post offices face near “freefall” unless a Government decision about the future of the network is taken soon.

PostComm chairman Nigel Stapleton issued the dire prediction as he ended a tour of Scotland in the far north with a visit to a pilot mobile post office at Reiss, near Wick, a traditional sub-post office at John O’Groats and talks with local businessmen and councillors in Thurso.

Earlier he visited an alternative pilot with a full sub-post office operating satellite sub-offices for a few hours a week in neighbouring villages around Leven in Fife and had meetings in Dundee.

As well as continuing Government cash support in recognition of the social role of local post offices in the community, he urged the lifting of the Royal Mail monopoly so the Post Office can benefit from handling growing business from private sector operators like TNT and DX a year after the end of Royal Mail’s monopoly delivering letters and parcels.

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