Wirral MP's fact-finding trip to Hoylake Delivery Office

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/2456 ... ry-office/

NEWLY-elected Wirral MP Matthew Patrick met postal workers in his constituency to find out more about what it takes to deliver letters and parcels to the community.

During his trip to Hoylake Delivery Office, Mr Patrick also learned how Royal Mail is adapting to the growth in parcels volumes and the decline in letters.

Whilst an increase in online shopping means greater demand for larger parcels, letter volumes have fallen from 20bn a year at their peak to just 6.7bn in 2024.

He also spoke to customer operations manager Lyndsey Rossiter about how Royal Mail’s strategy to continue to make sending and receiving parcels as convenient as possible by adding more choice.

This includes services like Parcel Collect, where posties pick up parcels from customers at the doorstep for delivery, and offering more ways to drop off parcels at convenient times and locations, such as Collect+ and parcel lockers.

By early 2025, there will be more than 21,000 locations across the UK where Royal Mail customers can send and receive parcels, including over 2,500 lockers, 11,500 Post Office branches, 5,000 Collect+ stores, 1,200 Royal Mail Customer Service Points and 1,200 parcel post boxes.

Mr Patrick then joined local postie Dave on his delivery round, to find out more about what a typical day for a postie looks like and to lend a hand delivering post in the local area.

Ms Rossiter, customer operations manager for Hoylake, said: "It was great to have Matthew visit our delivery office and to show him how Royal Mail is modernising and transforming. We were also grateful to have another pair of hands to help deliver the post!”

Mr Patrick said: "I'd like to thank Royal Mail for hosting me.

"After a morning walking in my postie’s shoes, I have a new-found appreciation for all they do.

"Our posties are a vital asset in our community, in all weathers and all year round."

[Mr Rush]

letter volumes have fallen from 20bn a year at their peak to just 6.7bn in 2024.

Thanks for the data point. Interestingly the decline sits right on a b^½ exponential curve so I'm betting on 4.6bn in 2030.

[SpacePhoenix]

How much notice did the DO get? It should always be ZERO notice so that the MP sees what it's really like

[Barnacle]

letter volumes have fallen from 20bn a year at their peak to just 6.7bn in 2024.

Thanks for the data point. Interestingly the decline sits right on a b^½ exponential curve so I'm betting on 4.6bn in 2030.

A graph like that for parcel volumes over the years would be good.

[Mr Rush]

A graph like that for parcel volumes over the years would be good.

OK, I poured over the last twenty years of financial reports. Before 2011 there's no breakdown for volume into addressed letters, unaddressed, domestic packets, international packets - it's just "62 million items a day". I can't extract packet numbers by comparing that to known letter volumes because the ratio obviously changed over the years. I've added the trend line as a best guess.

Beware: Do not mistake this for packets overtaking letters. They're on the secondary axis to make the change visible.

[Barnacle]

A graph like that for parcel volumes over the years would be good.

OK, I poured over the last twenty years of financial reports. Before 2011 there's no breakdown for volume into addressed letters, unaddressed, domestic packets, international packets - it's just "62 million items a day". I can't extract packet numbers by comparing that to known letter volumes because the ratio obviously changed over the years. I've added the trend line as a best guess.

Beware: Do not mistake this for packets overtaking letters. They're on the secondary axis to make the change visible.

Excellent. That’s brilliant and couldn’t be clearer.

[Mr Rush]

Excellent. That’s brilliant and couldn’t be clearer.

I can't let this go so I did some more digging.

The financial reports from the 00s list packet counts for each Christmas (the four weeks leading up): 2003 40m, 2004 55m, 2005 70m, 2007 120m. Almost double every two years. A very rough extrapolation (half volume the other eleven months) yields 260m in 2003 which is not much beyond the GPO's ~200 million annually in 1960. It would be reasonable to expect very minor growth up until the online shopping boom in this timeframe.

Problem is, by the turn of the decade the numbers are incongruous from one year to the next. The 2012 report says 585m in 2011-2012, yet the 2013 report says it was 950m 2011-2012. And even within the same report things don't quite line up. On page 6 of the 2012 report it says:

During Christmas 2011, a key trading time for Royal Mail in the UK, 1.4 billion UK inland addressed items were handled, including 86 million parcels.

Meanwhile on page 11:

During Christmas 2011 [6], Royal Mail's core network delivered around 79 million parcels.

Split the difference? Let's call it 82m that Christmas and extrapolate ~530m. Decently close because on page 16 the table reads: Royal Mail UK parcels network, Items handled (m): 585. Whence the missing 365 million? The other three entries on that table are Parcelforce Worldwide, Royal Mail International, and GLS. If you add the 375m from GLS you get... 960m! Following years just table 'Royal Mail core network/UKPIL' and 'Parcelforce worldwide', so are GLS numbers being rolled into the UK operation?

[Barnacle]

Excellent. That’s brilliant and couldn’t be clearer.

I can't let this go so I did some more digging.

The financial reports from the 00s list packet counts for each Christmas (the four weeks leading up): 2003 40m, 2004 55m, 2005 70m, 2007 120m. Almost double every two years. A very rough extrapolation (half volume the other eleven months) yields 260m in 2003 which is not much beyond the GPO's ~200 million annually in 1960. It would be reasonable to expect very minor growth up until the online shopping boom in this timeframe.

Problem is, by the turn of the decade the numbers are incongruous from one year to the next. The 2012 report says 585m in 2011-2012, yet the 2013 report says it was 950m 2011-2012. And even within the same report things don't quite line up. On page 6 of the 2012 report it says:

During Christmas 2011, a key trading time for Royal Mail in the UK, 1.4 billion UK inland addressed items were handled, including 86 million parcels.

Meanwhile on page 11:

During Christmas 2011 [6], Royal Mail's core network delivered around 79 million parcels.

Split the difference? Let's call it 82m that Christmas and extrapolate ~530m. Decently close because on page 16 the table reads: Royal Mail UK parcels network, Items handled (m): 585. Whence the missing 365 million? The other three entries on that table are Parcelforce Worldwide, Royal Mail International, and GLS. If you add the 375m from GLS you get... 960m! Following years just table 'Royal Mail core network/UKPIL' and 'Parcelforce worldwide', so are GLS numbers being rolled into the UK operation?

And people wonder why I distrust the figures they produce!!! The financial reports they produce for public consumption are devoid of key chunks of information and they only recently stopped GLS and RM intertrading so trying to establish and assign cost burdens and losses is nigh on impossible.

[postslippete]

The numbers don't add up for me. From a snapshot of the accounts in May this year show:


GLS has over 23,000 employees and made an adjusted operating profit of £320 million
Royal Mail has over 150,000 employees and records an adjusted loss of £348 million

And this is despite many of the changes that Royal Mail have introduced - the billions of pounds spent on parcel hubs that is supposed to increase our overall efficiency, the reduction in sick pay and seasonal variations via the deal, the increase of staff on inferior contracts, the bigger duties and increased workloads and mail not being delivered everyday....and we are still making these losses that we never made before?

You can't help but think that what IDS are doing is manipulating the profits and losses of the two companies to suit the narrative of reducing our USO and I think we will still be making losses for as long as we have a universal service.

[Barnacle]

The numbers don't add up for me. From a snapshot of the accounts in May this year show:


GLS has over 23,000 employees and made an adjusted operating profit of £320 million
Royal Mail has over 150,000 employees and records an adjusted loss of £348 million

And this is despite many of the changes that Royal Mail have introduced - the billions of pounds spent on parcel hubs that is supposed to increase our overall efficiency, the reduction in sick pay and seasonal variations via the deal, the increase of staff on inferior contracts, the bigger duties and increased workloads and mail not being delivered everyday....and we are still making these losses that we never made before?

You can't help but think that what IDS are doing is manipulating the profits and losses of the two companies to suit the narrative of reducing our USO and I think we will still be making losses for as long as we have a universal service.

I believe you are correct.

[Grinder64]

How much notice did the DO get? It should always be ZERO notice so that the MP sees what it's really like

I'm sure that the MP's immediate sensory engagement was one of fresh paint and bullshit.

[Hyrrokkin]

MP visits are a waste of time and just a PR exercise for the MP & RM

Why not do it without giving any notice !

[Mr Rush]

I'm sure that the MP's immediate sensory engagement was one of fresh paint and bullshit.

That used to be the reserve of royalty. Truly, they're putting the Royal in the company name.

So since 2010 is the last year with reliable parcel numbers, I went through each report and pulled the stated growth. Thus 551m +6%¹ +6.3% +1% +3% +2% +3% +6% +8% +2% +32% -13% -7% +5% = 908m 2022/23 and not the stated 1.205b. A shortfall of 300 million seems too large for cumulative rounding errors.

1: Yields 584m which is highly consistent with the 585m noted in the 2011/12 report and not the 1.01b claimed elsewhere in that same report nor the 1.2b claimed elsewhere again in that report.

[Barnacle]

I'm sure that the MP's immediate sensory engagement was one of fresh paint and bullshit.

That used to be the reserve of royalty. Truly, they're putting the Royal in the company name.

So since 2010 is the last year with reliable parcel numbers, I went through each report and pulled the stated growth. Thus 551m +6%¹ +6.3% +1% +3% +2% +3% +6% +8% +2% +32% -13% -7% +5% = 908m 2022/23 and not the stated 1.205b. A shortfall of 300 million seems too large for cumulative rounding errors.

1: Yields 584m which is highly consistent with the 585m noted in the 2011/12 report and not the 1.01b claimed elsewhere in that same report nor the 1.2b claimed elsewhere again in that report.

Why on earth hasn’t a single financial journalist picked up on this? Instead, they just repeat the company press release which we have all heard so often we could recite it without notes.

[TopperGas]

MP visits are a waste of time and just a PR exercise for the MP & RM

Why not do it without giving any notice !

What are they going to do then when they find loads of mail still in the DO??