Royal Mail demands end of Saturday deliveries as it crashes to a 320m loss

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mar ... -loss.html

Royal Mail has piled pressure on the Government to scrap Saturday letter deliveries as it crashed to a loss of nearly £320million.

With the 507-year-old firm facing a crucial Christmas after last year’s festive season was thrown into chaos by strikes, it warned that change was ‘urgently’ needed so it could adapt to people’s delivery habits.

To avoid a repeat of last year, when mail piled up in sorting offices, it is offering £500 bonuses if staff hit delivery targets.

It has also drawn up plans to hire 16,000 seasonal workers and open five temporary sorting offices to avoid backlogs.

It is under particular pressure to deliver after first-class stamps hit a record £1.25 last month, or £10 for a book of eight.

Seidenberg, who took charge in August, reiterated that Saturday letter deliveries had to be axed as the volume of letters posted continued to dwindle.

‘It’s not sustainable to maintain a network built for 20bn letters when we’re only delivering seven billion. Regulation has to move with the times,’ he said.

The comments came as IDS revealed losses at Royal Mail jumped to £319million in the six months to September 24 – up from £219million in the same period last year – as sales fell 2.9 per cent to £3.5billion.

The losses at Royal Mail wiped out profits of £150million at its international sister business GLS, leaving IDS with an overall loss of £169million – almost treble the £57million loss in the same period last year.

Seidenberg called on the Government and the regulator Ofcom to help it adapt to the declining use of letters alongside a boom in parcel deliveries and the rise of rival delivery groups such as Amazon and Evri.

‘We need to move on,’ Seidenberg said, adding that other countries had already reformed their postal services, and the UK was ‘being left behind’.

His comments came as Royal Mail continues to push for an overhaul of its Universal Service Obligation, the law that requires it to deliver letters six days a week, arguing that changing customer habits meant five days would be sufficient.


There have been growing complaints that the firm is falling behind on delivery targets, particularly for first-class post.

Ofcom fined it £5.6million this week for failing to meet its targets, which require Royal Mail to deliver 93 per cent of first-class mail within one working day and 98.5 per cent of second-class mail within three working days.

Last year, it delivered 73.7 per cent of first-class mail and 90.7 per cent of second-class mail on time.

The postal service is required to complete 99.9 per cent of delivery routes for each day on which a delivery is required, but last year it only managed 89.35 per cent.

Royal Mail also faces a £600million legal claim from rival Whistl which says it abused its dominant market position to squeeze out competitors.

It comes as the Post Office ended its 360-year exclusive partnership with Royal Mail this month by agreeing to act for rival carriers DPD and Evri.

[claystones]

bring it on

[Beanyjazz]

£320million eh??

For the past 4 months we've had the 'agency workers' (coming in at 11.30/12) and then waiting till 3pm for a van. Yesterday, there was 18 of them stood around doing nothing. 2 of them together went out with 97 parcels......Brought 97 back after 4 hours. 2 others went out with 6 loops, brought 5 back. I guarantee the same useless clowns will be in today. None of them are signing for vans, however if I don't I get to smell my manager's breath for 5 minutes. Absolute, clown fest! This Xmas will be the worst in history and it hasn't even started.

I honestly cannot think where Royal Mail are losing money.

[Kenfandango]

Same, chucking money at "casuals" who've been treated as poorly as we have over the past 2 years and never know what time or day they're expected to work so inevitably don't care to do a decent job (or any job at all.) Maybe if they hadn't made the routes unmanageable they wouldn't need all the extra casuals as "packet relief" and people would get a better service for mail and parcels

[Mr Rush]

‘It’s not sustainable to maintain a network built for 20bn letters when we’re only delivering seven billion.

The other 13 billion are still in the frames.

[wally7]

May be if Royal Mail provided a first class service like delivering the mail every day people would use it. Not like now rounds not going out for days ,may be that why people have cancelled they weekly subscription to some magazine. That why one of the reasons revenue down Royal mail own goal on purpose or not.

[ted_e_bear]

£320million eh??

For the past 4 months we've had the 'agency workers' (coming in at 11.30/12) and then waiting till 3pm for a van. Yesterday, there was 18 of them stood around doing nothing. 2 of them together went out with 97 parcels......Brought 97 back after 4 hours. 2 others went out with 6 loops, brought 5 back. I guarantee the same useless clowns will be in today. None of them are signing for vans, however if I don't I get to smell my manager's breath for 5 minutes. Absolute, clown fest! This Xmas will be the worst in history and it hasn't even started.

I honestly cannot think where Royal Mail are losing money.

We're a smallish office and apparently our com turned down the offer of agency staff for xmas, said we'd manage without them,(we won't really manage) think it's down to every time they get us some they're that f***ing useless it's more trouble than it's worth, last year it was just like what you're describing, they went out 2up with a few parcels disappeared for hours then brought half back as couldn't find the address all whilst royal mail paid 100's of pounds to the agency to produce the level of work that one of us could have done properly in about an hour.

[twoloops]

Monday to Friday bring it on

[pinstripe]

‘It’s not sustainable to maintain a network built for 20bn letters when we’re only delivering seven billion.

Then it should be easy, we should have too many staff.

Then again, they’re so full of cra*, I’m surprised the water companies aren’t releasing them into the sea

[1560loopsayear]

They'll still have you going out on Saturday delivering parcels. We're not going to work Mon-Fri and get every weekend off... even long timers

[ted_e_bear]

They'll still have you going out on Saturday delivering parcels. We're not going to work Mon-Fri and get every weekend off... even long timers

Yeah but not everyone though presumably there'll have to be some sort of duty structures that will give more Saturdays off than there is now as it won't require the full amount of staff on the Saturday.

[Mr Rush]

Yeah but not everyone though presumably there'll have to be some sort of duty structures that will give more Saturdays off than there is now as it won't require the full amount of staff on the Saturday.

Like 1-in-4 or the Nine Day Fortnights that came in with P&L? Of the offices that got those 'innovative duty patterns', how many retain them a decade later?

[NWpostie]

The reason deliveries used to work in the past before this new fangled system is quite simple. Incentive let the staff do what's best for themselves to clear the office, besides a manageable delivery route, allowing job and knock so they would work quickerfor it, being made to work to time doesn't encourage initiative.

[dazzler123]

The reason deliveries used to work in the past before this new fangled system is quite simple. Incentive let the staff do what's best for themselves to clear the office, besides a manageable delivery route, allowing job and knock so they would work quickerfor it, being made to work to time doesn't encourage initiative.

its not that simple. Now you are scanning tracked, lapsing absorbed into a botched frame from unrealistic revisions, leaving the office later, customer collections, emptying post boxes, auto next day delivery. There just isnt enough time to do it all