Alistair Cochrane: We have an improvement plan, and I am ready to
publish it. I am waiting till I conclude the negotiations with the CWU. Once
they are concluded, I will publish the plan.
Sarah Edwards: When do you think that will be?
Alistair Cochrane: We have a date to conclude by Monday 30 March. I
hope that we will be in a position to publish it thereafter.
Didn't see that OFCOM were called up afterwards, they got a bit of grief for the OFCOM CEO not being there.Chair: That takes us to time. Thank you very much indeed for giving
evidence to us in such a full and candid way today. We have absolutely no
ambition to derail the negotiations with the CWU, which sound like they
are at an important stage. What is critical now is that agreement is
secured and the next steps in USO reform are agreed so that the nation
can get its service back.
Mr Křetínský, what concerns me most is that you were unable to give
Parliament that categorical assurance this afternoon that you will get this
service back on its feet. You were able to say that you could get there, but
with some conditions. Perhaps at the appropriate moment in the next
couple of weeks, you could set out for the Committee exactly what those
conditions are. You have set out some pretty big ambitions to reduce the
number of letters that are late today. We welcome that, but we still think
it is too high. We would like to see the pathway to unlocking better service
and dealing with the retention crisis we have heard about this afternoon.
We would like to see strong measures to socialise the agreement within
the business so that it is well understood. We would like a further
exchange on the prioritisation of parcels.
There's transcripts of all three sessions here:
https://committees.parliament.uk/event/26916
Extract from the end of the OFCOM session:
All a bit inconclusive TBH. Like you've said, everything's going to wait until the biscuit fest concludes.Chair: What does Parliament need to do?
Natalie Black: We very much welcome this scrutiny. It has been very
helpful to see the correspondence between yourselves and the Royal Mail,
but we would encourage you to help us continue to keep its feet to the fire
on seeing this credible improvement plan.
Q127 Chair: How do we do that?
Natalie Black: Hearings like this one have been very helpful. The
negotiations are ongoing. They have not finished yet. We have heard
commitments today from the Royal Mail that it will be very quick with
coming forward with the improvement plan, but please note that I keep
using the word “credible”. It is not just any improvement plan; we want to
see a credible one that is backed up by investment.
Chair: This set of evidence has been extremely helpful. Thank you very
much indeed for being candid and forthright with us this afternoon. That
concludes the panel and the session