Saturday deliveries to go?

[POSTMAN]

Abandoning Saturday postal delivery “acceptable” says Ofcom

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Britain’s postal regulator has said there is public acceptance for eliminating Saturday mail deliveries – if packets and signed-for items could be collected on Saturdays and during evenings.

Ofcom issued a review of customer views (http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consul ... ser-needs/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) on Royal Mail’s delivery in the UK today, as part of its annual assessment of the nation’s universal postal service.

Polling 4,085 people and 1,126 businesses, the regulator said that although there was generally high satisfaction levels with the current service, people would accept changes designed to reduce the costs of running the nationwide postal service.

Among the suggestions that Ofcom said would have a “high” potential for achieving cost savings was the move to reduce mail delivery from six to five days per week.

Saturday was seen as the most acceptable day of the week to lose, in terms of deliveries.

Ofcom also suggested that people were now generally less demanding of next-day mail delivery, such as is provided by Royal Mail’s First Class service, even though there are high levels of usage for the service because of a perception of service quality.

Again, the costs of providing the service are “high”, Ofcom said, with some items having to be flown by air to reach Royal Mail’s 93% on-time target for the whole of the UK.

But Ofcom said its survey suggested that UK consumers could be happy with a single-tier letter delivery service for “everyday” items, perhaps slightly more expensive but quicker than Second Class. However, a cheaper next-day service than Special Delivery could be required for low-income users sending urgent items.

Packet delivery

Elsewhere in the survey, consumers expressed desire for more convenient packet delivery services and re-delivery options, and more control over delivery of valuable or time-sensitive items.

Packet services would be better with increased opening hours for collection officers, better tracking and delivery guarantees, as well as a predictable arrival timeslot.

But Ofcom suggested more than eight out of 10 consumers opposed the idea of delivering items to a secure locker in a central location, and 58% were opposed to delivery into a box at the edge of their property.

Ofcom said following the survey, it would consider whether any changes were needed in the way the universal postal service is run in the UK. The agency is inviting stakeholder views on the findings until 18th December 2012.

“Innovation, not cuts”

The Communication Workers Union said today that the Ofcom consumer research should not “open the door to a lowering of service standards”.

The union, which said it would respond formally to Ofcom’s research in due course, said today it was “concerned” at how the universal postal service will progress beyond the current Parliamentary season.

The Ofcom survey highlighted areas of growth potential – like parcel and ecommerce delivery, the union said, which should prompt “innovation, not cuts in order to maintain and improve service standards”.

Dave Ward, the CWU deputy general secretary, said the needs of mail consumers and staff working in the industry should be “at the heart” of any response to the research.

He said: “We’re very concerned at what we’ve seen in other countries, where in the Netherlands, for example, [PostNL] is lobbying for minimum service standards of three days a week. This approach would be bad for customers and for jobs.”

[POSTMAN]

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OFCOM - Office of Communications : Consumer perspectives on postal service revealed
10/16/2012| 06:44am US/Eastern


Ofcom has today published results from the most comprehensive research ever undertaken by the regulator into the needs of UK postal users.

Over 4,000 residential consumers and 1,100 businesses were surveyed, and eight discussion groups took place in locations across the UK, to allow customers to voice their views about the UK's postal service.1

UK consumers and businesses benefit from the universal postal service, which requires Royal Mail to deliver to every address in the UK six days a week at affordable and uniform prices. Ofcom is required by law to carry out an assessment on whether the postal service is meeting consumers' needs.2

Consumers and businesses were asked to give opinions on the current postal service; how they use it and their needs from it.

The research represents a key part of the evidence that Ofcom is gathering to decide whether users' reasonable needs are met by the current postal service. Under the terms of the Postal Services Act, this review must be concluded by 31 March 2013. Ofcom is inviting views on the findings from its research.

Changing postal habits

Consumers say they are relying less on the postal service and increasingly substituting post with electronic methods of communication such as the internet, email, telephone and text.3

The research suggests that the average number of items sent by residential consumers each week has more than halved since 2006 (from 3.5 to 1.5 items), while over a fifth of consumers (22%) expect to send even less mail in three years time.

Eighty-two per cent of residential consumers and 87% of businesses agree, however, that there are some things they will always need to send by post, including personal communications such as greeting cards and parcels and packets.

Needs of consumers

The research identified consumers' core needs from the postal service. These include: simplicity, trust, speed, affordability and a service that fits in with modern day life.

Ofcom's research shows that, in general, the postal service largely satisfies these core needs. In addition, nine out of 10 residential and business consumers consider the current level of service to be acceptable.4

In order to understand the needs of consumers and businesses and establish the parts of the postal service they value, respondents were asked to give their opinion on a variety of potential changes to the service. Key research findings include:

More convenient packet and parcel services and flexible re-delivery

Internet shopping is fuelling an increase in the number of packets and parcels being received by consumers. Around a third (35%) of residential users receive packets and parcels at least once a month, up from 27% in 2010. Half (51%) also predict that they will be ordering more goods that are delivered by post in three years time.

Consumers want easier and more flexible ways to receive parcels and packets. Suggested improvements to Royal Mail's basic parcel delivery service included changes to delivery office opening hours, improved tracking services, and the ability to select a delivery time-slot.

Consumers' opinions on speed of delivery

The majority of consumers use First Class (the current next-day delivery service), over Second Class. Fifty-nine per cent of residential consumers use First Class all or most of the time, while 66% of mail sent by businesses is via the First Class service.

However, few in comparison (9% of residential consumers), say they need to deal with all or most of their post on the same day it arrives. This pattern is reflected to some extent by business users, with 15% saying they need to deal with all or most of their post on the day it arrives.

When given the choice, 59% of residential consumers and 58% of businesses had a preference for a single class of service (less expensive than First Class, but delivered in two days), over the current two-tier service.5

Comparatively, 36% of residential consumers and 41% of businesses preferred the existing service where First Class is normally delivered within one day while Second Class is normally delivered within three.

Consumers' views on collection and delivery

Currently, Royal Mail must collect and deliver letters Monday to Saturday and other packets Monday to Friday. To help establish the need for a six-day service, participants were asked to consider its value against other alternatives: delivery and collection on Saturday plus four weekdays; and five days a week, Monday to Friday.

Both businesses and residential consumers consider midweek delivery and collection to be of value. Residential consumers hold greater value for Saturday collection and delivery than businesses.

Current collection and delivery days are specified in the Postal Services Act. The Government has ruled out any changes to the minimum requirements of the universal postal service during this Parliament.

Next Steps

Stakeholders are invited to respond to the Review of postal users' needs consultation by 18 December 2012.

[fishtank]

Wallingtons.
4 day weeks.
9 day fortnights.
Jobs.

[blackadder]

r.m. would love to get rid of saturday deliveries, means they get rid of some more staff. be a 10-6 job soon

[glenfiddich]

just had a meeting today with Paul Railton and Andrea Bowmer and according to them saturday deliveries are here for the next 10 years

[arnold cheshire]

r.m. would love to get rid of saturday deliveries, means they get rid of some more staff. be a 10-6 job soon

that would be good when the clocks go back late oct to feb when your delivering in the dark for 2 hours

[brunswick]

seven years ago my then manager told me that he had attended a meeting where the sacrifice of saturday deliveries had been discussed, a lot of my fellow workers expressed a liking for this idea as it meant a long weekend every week,don't be fooled it also means a reduction in manpower ofnearly 17%. and indeed if this was passed a certain quicker move towards privatisation

[clashcityrocker]

just had a meeting today with Paul Railton and Andrea Bowmer and according to them saturday deliveries are here for the next 10 years

Are we supposed to know who they are?

[joshua wingate]

r.m. would love to get rid of saturday deliveries, means they get rid of some more staff. be a 10-6 job soon

Most operational staff would be in favour of losing Saturday, to be honest.
The minimum EU requirement for a national postal operator is to deliver five days.

Saturday was okay to work when it was only a light sweep round and most people were away by mid morning, enabling people to have a weekend - but in recent years Royal Mail have loaded more onto Saturday and have completely taken the piss out of it.
Other European countries have their two rest days together (if not Saturday and Sunday, then Sunday and Monday) not two random days at different points of the week (e.g. Tuesday and Sunday).

It will cost some jobs - but there will be a need to provide a Special Delivery/Tracked service on Saturday as well as Collections and Callers.......plus the workload will be spread over five days instead of six and could, conversely, protect jobs and create more full time roles rather then 25 hour contracts lumped onto the heavy days of the week.

[fishtank]

Most operational staff would be in favour of losing Saturday, to be honest.

Have you surveyed most operational staff joshua?
I understand and respect your wish not to have to work on a saturday but that's a separate issue.
The argument for and against a monday-friday is very complicated and without knowing how it would be resourced it's difficult to properly gauge members opinions.

[TeeferTiger]

Most operational staff would be in favour of losing Saturday, to be honest.

Have you surveyed most operational staff joshua?
I understand and respect your wish not to have to work on a saturday but that's a separate issue.
The argument for and against a monday-friday is very complicated and without knowing how it would be resourced it's difficult to properly gauge members opinions.

When the issue was floated at our DO several years ago, the majority were for it...

[DGP1]

Most operational staff would be in favour of losing Saturday, to be honest.

Have you surveyed most operational staff joshua?
I understand and respect your wish not to have to work on a saturday but that's a separate issue.
The argument for and against a monday-friday is very complicated and without knowing how it would be resourced it's difficult to properly gauge members opinions.

When the issue was floated at our DO several years ago, the majority were for it...

But then most of our colleagues are idiots

[fishtank]

When the issue was floated at our DO several years ago, the majority were for it...

This is the problem though,of course they were for it because they had no idea how it would impact on them.
Everybody wanted the 5 day week when the single delivery came in.
Six weeks after they realised how much extra work it involved many of them would have switched back and that change didn't even cost jobs,it protected and created them.

I think the members should resist adding their voice to the clamour for a reduced service if only long enough to find out what it would really mean to us first in terms of jobs lost and changed attendance patterns.
I know for a fact the guys on the week off scheme in my office would be gutted to lose it even for a mon-fri.

[TeeferTiger]

When the issue was floated at our DO several years ago, the majority were for it...

This is the problem though,of course they were for it because they had no idea how it would impact on them.
Everybody wanted the 5 day week when the single delivery came in.
Six weeks after they realised how much extra work it involved many of them would have switched back and that change didn't even cost jobs,it protected and created them.

I think the members should resist adding their voice to the clamour for a reduced service if only long enough to find out what it would really mean to us first in terms of jobs lost and changed attendance patterns.
I know for a fact the guys on the week off scheme in my office would be gutted to lose it even for a mon-fri.

I never said they knew what they were getting themselves in for lol Besides, it was mainly the gobby ones who were looking forward to it because it was proposed that their already cushy rounds would get even nicer...

[Geezer]

The Div Rep sent these out today, Posted just in case anyone whats to read them!

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TO ALL BRANCHES

Please find attached the Ofcom reports issued today.

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