Regulator calls for 'serious' debate on splitting up RM

[bristolchris]

NATHALIE THOMAS ()

ROYAL Mail and the Post Office may be separated under a radical proposal that will be seen as a further move towards privatisation of the postal network.

Sir Nigel Stapleton, chairman of regulator PostComm, is to launch an inquiry into the merits of a split early next year.

He told Scotland on Sunday he wanted an "open, structured and serious" debate about the separation of the two businesses.

His call for an inquiry was immediately attacked by Royal Mail as an unnecessary distraction, while the unions involved in last week's strike action are unlikely to look favourably on any moves to change the existing structure and may see it as weakening the Royal Mail.

At present, Post Office Ltd operates as a subsidiary of the Royal Mail Group, which itself operates under the umbrella of Royal Mail Holdings, the company managed by Alan Cook.

Stapleton believes that a complete separation could boost Post Office Ltd's chances of attracting more business from private sector competitors to the Royal Mail. He says deals with private sector companies such as TNT Post, DHL and UPS could help turn around the country's flagging Post Office network.

Post Office Ltd leaked around £4m a week between 2006 and 2007 and continues to rely heavily on an annual subsidy of £150m from the Government.

The separation of the two businesses has been talked about by academics and industry critics for some time, but Stapleton says this latest move will mark the first substantial inquiry into the future of the Royal Mail Group. "This will be the first really open and structured, serious debate," he said.

Stapleton intends to consult the Royal Mail and industry groups such as PostWatch, the independent watchdog, over the coming months about how to conduct the inquiry, but he expects talks to start early next year. "We could be doing something through the internet, structured workshops, things like that," he said.

However, the Royal Mail has already dismissed the idea, saying separation talks would distract it from delivering its commercial strategy.

A spokeswoman for Royal Mail said: "It is vital that we remain focused, and we simply do not believe that a new debate about splitting the organisation up, or opening the network up to our own competitors in the postal market, is the right way to keep our focus on our customers or on our commercial strategy - it's a debate that may be important to regulators, but which is largely of less importance to our customers."

Stapleton revealed his intentions as the Communication Workers Union (CWU) reached an agreement with the Royal Mail late last week, which is expected to bring an end to the postal strikes as early as tomorrow.

Talks ended late on Friday night between Adam Crozier, chief executive of the Royal Mail Group, Billy Hayes, general secretary of the CWU, and Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, over pay, pensions and flexible working.

The CWU is set to consider the deal further tomorrow but it is thought that a fresh round of rolling strikes, planned to start tomorrow morning, will have been averted.

News of the inquiry followed publication of PostComm's annual report into the state of the Post Office network last week.

The report recommended that Post Office Ltd should try to transform itself by forming more commercial partnerships with the private sector - not only private postal operators but also financial services companies.

The regulator wants to see more partnerships like the one the Post Office formed with the Bank of Ireland in March 2004 to sell products such as personal loans, credit cards and motor insurance.

The Post Office has recently developed new barcode technology which allows customers to exchange barcodes that they have been sent by private companies for cash at their local Post Office branch.

After trials earlier this year, the service has been commissioned by British Gas, BetNow, the mobile betting company, and the English Cricket Board.

[antcpfc]

on t.v. yesterday some bod. was advising that the 'last mile' delivery system should be run as a separate business with open access from all firms .I suppose the present collection and sorting side from us would then be run on a completely independent basis paying to use our service like any other.

[norbet colon]

on t.v. yesterday some bod. was advising that the 'last mile' delivery system should be run as a separate business with open access from all firms .I suppose the present collection and sorting side from us would then be run on a completely independent basis paying to use our service like any other.

it also weakens the union ,harder to organise , can make staff vulnerable, Byers has wanted this from the start , Leighton to do his dirty work. Know all about Sectorisation then shadow privatisation then privatisation with the NUR/RMT .The Tories wanted maintenance seperated from renewal to break the RMT, work got contracted & subsequently subcontracted out to building firms hence all the crashes , True Blue Tories to a man, bits have gone to cowboy bus operators , caterers , security firms on NMW .

[Post Off]

Un-fugging-believable!

[pop it in pete]

My veiw is that the Mail centres will be spit from delivery offices similar to the split with post office (divide and conquer). Then the mail centres will be franchised out. TNT and the like are chumping at the bit to get in to them. Logistics is what they do at a great profit whilst shitting on their staff. Delivery offices will then become like the retail sector too fragmented to organise any crediable industrial power (just look at USDAW or many sections of the post office counters). The most powerfull item here is the brand ROYAL MAIL which no private company should get their hands on. It and the delivery workers are this companys biggest assit they should stop treating us like donkeys and realise that it is us who make the company we visit every address in the country between us. We should use that to our advantage. The public would not accept 5,6,8, different postal workers every day up and down their paths. Buisness may as they do with parcels now, but Mr and Mrs Jones wont. After all how many would have to sign the official secrets act? We do does a T.N.T. postal worker have to ????
Once divided the delivery offices would be more disjointed then they are now and weird and dangerous practices would be all over the shop. Take this rumoured flexability deal. My D.O.M anounced that flexability would be delt with localy on Friday. He told us H.Q. had instructed him he had to make this anouncement on Friday. Then Friday night a supposed deal. Just like that. Whos pulling the strings hey. The thing here is to make sure that the flexability deal gets pushed back up the I.R. frame work back to national level. Otherwise we are going to end up more of a mess than we are in now. So dont start working to flexable practices yet refuse and use the I.R. frame work via reps local and area to get a national deal in place.

[NWpostie]

They should never have split up parcels, counters and delivery up, it was much more linked up when we were one, it is easier to organise a delivery by any means necessary, instead they are charging each other for services, thrice the admin staff, managment, disjointed delivery strategy.

[jemima]

Useful work is not fashionable now. Everyone's urged to go to University when they leave school. So there's got to be splitting, to create a multiplicity of businesses with plenty of jobs for all the new little managers to do. Then they can sit in offices and not get much exercise, get depressed, eat junk food and get fat, to provide work for Gordon Brown's NHS, that he is committed to paying for.

We only need basic economics theory to see the flaw in this scheme - it won't actually generate any more income than we can get now from processing mail. And if you don't generate more income, change cannot be progress.

Let's get Britain back to real work.

[johno47]

WHATS THIS BROWN GETTING HIS OWN BACK...UNITY IS STRENGTH.

[theflyingpostman]

Useful work is not fashionable now. Everyone's urged to go to University when they leave school. So there's got to be splitting, to create a multiplicity of businesses with plenty of jobs for all the new little managers to do. Then they can sit in offices and not get much exercise, get depressed, eat junk food and get fat, to provide work for Gordon Brown's NHS, that he is committed to paying for.

We only need basic economics theory to see the flaw in this scheme - it won't actually generate any more income than we can get now from processing mail. And if you don't generate more income, change cannot be progress.

Let's get Britain back to real work.

Well put! Splitting up Royal Mail will also make the cost for providing the Universal Service Obligation more expensive. Just like with the railways each sector will expect to make a profit on their operations, pushing up the total cost.

It looks like to me the "Public Servants" at PostComm have got a lot of spare time on their hands.

[norbet colon]

Useful work is not fashionable now. Everyone's urged to go to University when they leave school. So there's got to be splitting, to create a multiplicity of businesses with plenty of jobs for all the new little managers to do. Then they can sit in offices and not get much exercise, get depressed, eat junk food and get fat, to provide work for Gordon Brown's NHS, that he is committed to paying for.

We only need basic economics theory to see the flaw in this scheme - it won't actually generate any more income than we can get now from processing mail. And if you don't generate more income, change cannot be progress.

Let's get Britain back to real work.

Well put! Splitting up Royal Mail will also make the cost for providing the Universal Service Obligation more expensive. Just like with the railways each sector will expect to make a profit on their operations, pushing up the total cost.

It looks like to me the "Public Servants" at PostComm have got a lot of spare time on their hands.

We had Pretend Capitalisim on the railways according to that top "leftie journalist " Christian Woolmar examples
A Disabled / Elderly /infirm passenger arrives at Wigan North Western off a Inter City Train , a porter can only take his/her luggage etc to the station door , she wants to go on the Southport or Kirkby Train from Wigan Wallgate which is literally accross the road . The TAXI DRIVER assists her , takes him/her up the road to turn the taxi round and deposits him/her on the Wallgate Forecourt .
Local Guards working out of Preston sign on duty , as the station is a Inter -City station but with local trains connecting , Inter City charge £13,000 a year to book EACH OF those guards on . "Solution " is transfer all these guards to Blackpool , then a "bright spark " realises these guard's wages are too high due to the travelling time allowance. At Blackpool they are quite happy to pay high wages to a quality control supervisor . I was questioned as to why my train was late into Blackpool by one of these inspectors , I was late as I'd to get a wheelchair bound passenger off the train at Poulton Le Flyde and push that passenger up a hill to a taxi on the main road as they'd got rid of the late shift.
Now it's 100 times worse , Specalist Railway Lawyers , all passing cheques to each other instead of trying to run a f****** railway. For some reason subsidy has gone from £500 million to £5 billion. Lots of people have become millionaires , mediocre BR Board members who bought all the trains up for £100,000 for each board member then charged to lease them out then sold the leasing companies they'd created to HSBC Bank.