Tag: UK

A row is set to break out this week as the postal services watchdog Postwatch accuses Royal Mail of misleading the industry’s financial regulator.

The charge comes days before the regulator Postcomm publishes its initial proposals on how much Royal Mail can charge for deliveries for the three years beginning next spring.

Postwatch, whose relations with Royal Mail under chairman Allan Leighton have been strained since it advised customers not to use first- class post over the Christmas rush, claims Royal Mail exaggerated the threat it faced from competition in order to get a lenient regulatory settlement last time around, in 2003.

The dispute focuses on forecasts made by Royal Mail for mail volumes, a key driver of its profits, which it said would suffer from the introduction of competition.

Alan Johnson, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, has pledged to reject plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail.

The claim is made by Billy Hayes, the general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), who met Mr Johnson on Tuesday.

The news comes after weeks of speculation that Mr Johnson was warming to Royal Mail proposals to turn the state-owned business into a John Lewis- style partnership.

But Mr Hayes said: ‘Alan Johnson said that the Government would stick to the manifesto commitment and keep Royal Mail in the public sector. He said that he had no plans to renege on that.’

Allan Leighton, chairman of Royal Mail, wants to part-privatise it, by buying 51 per cent of the company from the Government, and hand shares to the workers.

With the time for raising objections to Royal Mail’s PIP deadline running out, many of those affected flocked to Postcomm’s summit last week to make their final plea. Sebastian Burford reports on whether they made a convincing argument

Postcomm’s pricing in proportion (PIP) summit, held in London last week, was billed as the last chance for the industry to voice its concerns, with more than 130 delegates gathering from all corners of the UK to vent their spleens at Royal Mail’s proposed scheme.

It may be more than three years since Royal Mail revealed plans to introduce size-based pricing (PM May 24 2002), but the controversy refuses to go away.

Since Postcomm entered its first consultation period on the changes last year (PM April 2, 2004), some 10,000 representations, including 130 individual responses, have been received – an unprecedented number for the industry regulator.