Royal Mail - Sliced Or Diced

[TrueBlueTerrier]

06 January 2009 by Mark White - © Hellmail.co.uk

http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/te ... 6&zoneid=3

Well, I'll say one thing, the future of Royal Mail has more twists and turns than an Agatha Cristie murder plot - only with far too many murder suspects. Just as we'd absorbed the fact that Postwatch was to be wiped from the face of the map (and that was odd), now its Postcomm's turn, all apparently, part of a totally brand new vision for the Royal Mail. I can almost hear Jim Royle's reply (covers ears).

Well what exactly was the last vision then, or have I missed something here?

To be fair, things have indeed changed a great deal since the postal market was deregulated but by far the biggest thorn in Royal Mail's most sensitive areas has been government itself. With years of indecision as to whether our postal service should remain a public entity or not, this and the previous government have allowed core contracts to leak from Post Office Ltd's hands leaving it little more than an over-paid stamp machine and forcing a robust and somewhat rapid pruning of the entire post office network.This of course is all progress, or at least a series of botched attempts to make Royal Mail fit the EU's dream of a competitive and improved postal service.

What has actually happened is that the lifeblood of Royal Mail has been drained almost entirely and what was thought to be a growing market, and you have to admire such optimism, actually turned out to be a rapidly shrinking one - oops. The solution this time (one presumes) is to put in a whole load of new faces for 2009 with even glossier brochures than the last ones, all designed to convince us that "well, privatisation is the only way you know".

The announcement that Mandelson was to reappear had the hallmark of a government in sheer desperation mode. If Mandelson were my dentist I'd suffer the toothache, but here he is with Royal Mail's future in his mitts and announcing his intention to privatise Royal Mail on the very day the Hooper report is published. My, that was quick. One can't help feeling that with no solutions in sight, the government had simply offloaded the problem to Mandelson but at least they'd have someone to blame I suppose.

Whilst the Hooper report picked up on many things that were having an impact on Royal Mail's ability to deliver and its sustainability, I just don't buy the idea that Royal Mail's problems are all down to the growth in internet and email, which is more or less what the report concluded. The fact that large parts of Royal Mail's income has been offered to other operators with no interest in maintaining or contributing towards a public service, might just have made a small dent in the sustainability of the Universal Service and Royal Mail's finances - just a small one. Even a rough guestimate scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet could have seen that one coming surely?

As Hellmail editor Steve Lawson remarked in the office this week, the bodies responsible for overseeing Royal Mail are vanishing almost as fast as we can actually become acquainted with them and each new entity becomes ever more distant from actually protecting consumers. Before long it will be left entirely to volunteers at Citizens Advice centres and the occasional bleat from a Hellmail journalist.

The announcement by Royal Mail of the appointment of Lord Currie, founding Chairman from Ofcom to Royal Mail's board has been met with much criticism already. Described as "beyond belief" by Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, it does look somewhat odd but perhaps a clear indication of a determination to sell chunks of Royal Mail to TNT or whoever as soon as possible. The massive pension deficit will be dumped on the tax payer to form part of massive tax rises in the future.

In short, Two years of meetings and endless consultations with business have all basically come to nothing and everything is to be scrapped in favour of part privatisation. I call that a complete disaster. Hard to believe that only three years ago Royal Mail was actually making a profit. All I can say is that we must have sent an enormous amount of text messages to reduce Royal Mail to this.

Deregulation simply hasn't worked in the UK and it has cost an absolute fortune to do little more than pedal backwards, scrapping one idea after another whilst Royal Mail continues to shrink before our eyes. With the present global recession and Royal Mail apparently in urgent need of investment, its also going to be a buyers market.

The saddest thing is that the people that really do care about Royal Mail, which if the backlash on post office closures is anything to go by is most of the country, no longer have a voice. That input has been surgically removed.

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[norbert]

It is desperation from New Labour - the 2000 Postal Services Act - the more Europhile than thou stuff - and New Labour's " Managerialism " with " personalties " from outside the industry have worked out well

Send for :cfo ( Britain's Unofficial Deputy Prime Minister ) to get them out of the corner they backed themselves into