No plans to reduce six-day Royal Mail service, says Business Secretary

[simmo11]

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/ ... 14472.html

Ofcom has announced it will review the service requirement to gather evidence on how it ‘might need to evolve to more closely meet consumer needs’.

The Royal Mail has lobbied for its universal service obligation to be reduced from six days to five.

The Business Secretary said she does not have plans to approve the Royal Mail switching to a five-days-a-week operation.

Kemi Badenoch suggested to MPs that allowing the Royal Mail to shed its Saturday delivery and pick-up duties would mean it “stops being the service which you want”.

The Royal Mail’s universal service obligation (USO) forces it to deliver letters six days a week to all 32 million addresses in the UK for the same price no matter where the letters are going.

Ofcom this month announced it is reviewing the UK’s universal postal service regime.

The watchdog said it would be gathering evidence on how the minimum service level “might need to evolve to more closely meet consumer needs”.

The Royal Mail, which was privatised under the Conservative-led coalition government in 2012, has lobbied for its obligations to be reduced, arguing the six-day service is unviable.

The firm blamed the lack of reform for having to increase the price of first class stamps, having announced it will put them up by 15p in October to £1.25.

We will look at the Ofcom advice but I certainly don’t have any plans to change the USO

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch

Ofcom’s decision to review the USO comes only three months after the Department for Business and Trade said it would not support a change to a mid-week only service.

Junior minister Kevin Hollinrake wrote to the Business and Trade Committee in June saying: “We currently have no plans to change the minimum requirements of the universal postal service as set out in the Postal Services Act 2011, including six-day letter deliveries.”

Ms Badenoch repeated the position when she appeared before the committee on Tuesday.

Asked if the Government would accept an Ofcom recommendation for a switch to a five-day operation, the Cabinet minister said: “From my perspective, advice is advice.

“We have been lobbied on this before.

“We will look at the Ofcom advice but I certainly don’t have any plans to change the USO.”

Ms Badenoch added: “I don’t believe that the USO is the place to start in terms of looking at the Royal Mail’s business.

“It is, like the Post Office, incredibly difficult, and it is also difficult times for them to be operating.

“But I think if you start to move things like the USO, then it stops being the service which you want to be delivered.”

She said Mr Hollinrake was currently in discussions with the business to work out “how best to get themselves on an even keel”.

“So I think what we will do is we will get that advice and we will consider it.”

[qwerty2]

Ha ha ha f… you RM and Dave Ward

[dazzler123]

whats the point if they just fail it anyway?

[Rommagic]

For now 2023.

[Woody Guthrie]

Ha ha ha f… you RM and Dave Ward

Who does this really f**k?
RM senior management?
Still picking up their huge salaries.
Dave Ward?
Still picking up his huge salary.


You could maybe argue the shareholders but their dividends will be protected first by increasing the gutting of our terms and conditions so really....

It's a big f**k you to... us.

[Jb1969]

Ha ha ha f… you RM and Dave Ward

Who does this really f**k?
RM senior management?
Still picking up their huge salaries.
Dave Ward?
Still picking up his huge salary.


You could maybe argue the shareholders but their dividends will be protected first by increasing the gutting of our terms and conditions so really....

It's a big f**k you to... us.


Are you suggesting the CWU are prepared to surrender yet more of our terms & conditions?

[nutcracker]

No way they piss off the blue rinse brigade before an election, after though…

[postslippete]

Getting rid of a day off the USO will allow Royal Mail to offload thousands of permanent jobs and, for those who remain, even less days to do more work. If Royal Mail and the CWU were seriously committed to the USO like they say they are, then why has it allowed some areas in the UK to go without post for days, if not weeks??

There are big question marks over whether the USO is the financial burden that Royal Mail says it is. Everyone knows that the company made obscene profits in 2021, gave it all away to shareholders and then announced just weeks later that they now have significant losses of over £1 million a day. Royal Mail mismanagement also tried to justify scrapping 10,000 FTE jobs while they continued to recruit and retain thousands of agency staff in the hope of taking many of them on with inferior contracts and less pay. In the meantime the company keep bumping up the price of postage and increased our duties making many of them unachievable on busy days.

Without a plan in place or any real commitment to provide a stellar 5 day USO Royal Mail's current direction will obviously leave communities, businesses, customers and us workers worse off. Royal Mail bosses want to end the USO risking a service that caters to 32 million households and that has existed for more than 500 years to replace it with yet another gig economy courier company. We should not let mis-management and greed destroy a service that communities rely on, nor watch from the sidelines as we are made redundant, and our terms and conditions shredded. If anything, there needs to be an inquiry into how Royal Mail leadership are single handedly destroying the company by gross mis-management.


So it's actually a big f**k you to them.


*Stand by your post*

[Woody Guthrie]

Are you suggesting the CWU are prepared to surrender yet more of our terms & conditions?

Whether people want to bury their heads in the sand, deny the reality, promote conspiracy theories or post a great deal of word soup with no substance is immaterial.

The fact is ultimately our terms and conditions are inextricably linked to the financial position of the company and it's been made clear that's Royal Mail's financial position not the group.

That's the reality of a private company. It's s**t but no amount of banging the drum and crying foul will change that.

[George50]

Muppets

[chickenwittle]

She won’t be the business secretary in a few months after the election, so it’s irrelevant what she says.

[scoobymunster]

She won’t be the business secretary in a few months after the election, so it’s irrelevant what she says.

Is the election not due at latest end of January 2025? It'll all change after that

[hans solo]

Why do you actually think labour will succeed

[scotchy1962]

You can argue that the 6 day delivery service is out dated in this modern age, you can also argue that they bought into this company when it was privatised knowing exactly what they were buying and what was expected of them by us, the people they bought it off of.
Either way i don't remember anywhere in the buying out where it said us posties had to be stomped on until we become the minions of big business, somewhere in the last 40 odd years somebody decided that victorian standards for workers was the way to go and the duty of care these employers are supposed to have for their workforce should be dumped in the bin.
Nowhere do i see where we should lose any t&c's in return for another 40 lashes of the Dom/Dims tongue in return for one of the worst pay settlements in the history of pay settlements.
Worse of all we appear to have a union running scared in case RM throws them out of the room and complicit in everything coming our way, and we have active union reps on here trying to justify what's happening, you couldn't make it up!
Until the CWU grow a pair or have a complete clear out to rid themselves of the corporate cronies we are all doomed.
On a positive note we will all get a few bob extra next week.

[scoobymunster]

Why do you actually think labour will succeed

Labour are no better, or worse, than the current lot. My point is politicians won't make any decisions that might hit them at the polls so close to an election. As soon as an election is over, they can be braver. The Government need only look at other countries postal services to see where we are heading.