USO Saturday letters?

[toonshola]

Seem to recall there was another report due from ofcom in either October/November regarding the issue of Saturday letters possibly being dropped amongst other things. Anyone know when exactly this is due? Are we going to see 5 day letters introduced in 2022?

[POSTMAN]

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-d ... cs/stats21

Nothing on their website.

Although they did say this in their 2020 review ...

The review found that Royal Mail would be able to cut Saturday letter deliveries and still meet the needs of 97% of consumers and small businesses, suggesting that reducing letter deliveries to five days a week would still reflect postal users’ reasonable needs.

Review of postal users’ needs

[yellowbelly]

These quotes were from Ofcom Review of Postal Users' needs dated 26 Nov 2020,
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-d ... user-needs so the data and OFCOM's conclusions
are already there. What has happened/is due to happen next/whose court the ball is now in as a result I haven't seen yet:

4.49 We further note that having post delivered Monday to Friday, and the availability of next
day delivery also seemed to be fairly important to both SME and residential users. Both
Monday to Friday delivery (87% vs 74%) and availability of next day delivery (80% vs 75%)
were more important to SME users than residential users.
4.50 A materially smaller proportion of users considered that delivery six days a week or on
Saturdays was important. 57% of residential users and 17% of SME users considered
Saturday delivery to be important. We note that this question asked participants to
consider post (i.e. letters and parcels), and so this is not a perfect indicator of the
importance of Saturday letter delivery alone.108

and

4.64 In our last review of user needs, we found areas where needs appeared to be changing.
We noted that there appeared changing needs in relation to delivery speed127 and there
was some support, rationale and evidence to suggest that five days letters delivery met
user needs.128

and

Key findings
• The current service, delivering letters and parcels six days a week, meets the needs of virtually all
users, and this suggests it reflects users’ reasonable needs.
• Five days a week letter delivery frequency would have a very small impact on residential and
SME users, and our research suggested it would continue to meet the needs of virtually all users.
This evidence suggests that reducing the frequency of letter deliveries requirement to five days a
week would reflect users’ reasonable needs.
• Weekday letter delivery is preferred to Saturday. Whilst findings are similar for residential users
whether the five days are specifically Monday-Friday or include Saturday plus four weekdays,
SMEs have a preference for weekday deliveries.

You just beat me to it POSTMAN!

[toonshola]

Thanks for the reply’s. There was a video put out in July where Terry Pullinger said wait for a report this October or November. Guess we will just wait and see.

[POSTMAN]

Terry says a lot...

[toonshola]

Terry says a lot...

Haha very true

[tomtallis]

.

[koolishy67]

I think USO is gone now

[hans solo]

our office dont prep any mech mail on the saturday now ,say its not a failure

[Rommagic]

We need too hear what’s going on?.

[twoloops]

Did my day off today for a day in leu, took 3/4 of a walk that had not been cleared since last Thursday, 10 to 16 bundles with D2Ds each loop with 2 bags on a trolley, delivered to almost every house, but it worked well much better than walking up all those drives with just one letter & it was only taking 10/15 more minutes each walk, it could be the future

[postieblueshirt]

Did my day off today for a day in leu, took 3/4 of a walk that had not been cleared since last Thursday, 10 to 16 bundles with D2Ds each loop with 2 bags on a trolley, delivered to almost every house, but it worked well much better walking up that drive with one letter & it was only taking 10/15 more minutes each walk, it could be the future

Maybe best keeping that info to yourself lol

[ThatsNotPlumb]

Since the start of COVID it's become abundantly clear that standard 1st/2nd class mail is very much not a priority to be delivered daily if their are staff shortages or overall workload starts to get high.

Been saying this for years now but it does seem like only a matter of time before mail deliveries on a Saturday (& probably eventually Sunday also) are strictly a premium service ie Special, track or maybe even recorded.

[Munchboii]

Isle of Man went to this 2 years ago on saturdays only, not worked particularly well and already trying to get saturdays back in the wake of covid parcel levels