The Independent View: Where Next for Royal Mail?

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With privatisation done and dusted it was inevitable that the debate about Britain’s postal service would move beyond the public vs private argument.

Royal Mail is now a private company and is likely to remain so. It, of course, faced many challenges regardless of ownership which were certain to surface once it moved into the private sector. One of these is now coming across loud and clear. Namely the requirement of Royal Mail to deliver a universal delivery service to every UK address six days a week.

In response to falling profits, management and union within the company launched a call to the regulator to require the competition to be bound by the same Universal Service Obligation as Royal Mail. This call has fallen on deaf ears.

The reality that is facing people at the top of Royal Mail is that they are operating in a competitive market. A market that is rigged in favour of the competition. Letter volumes are dropping and although the parcel market is growing competition is fierce.

Amazon now use their own drivers rather than send their products via the Royal Mail network. They have also installed click and collect boxes in convenient town centre locations. TNT has workers delivering door to door on the streets of many of our major cities. They are pushing for more and the regulator is likely to accede to their demands.

Change looks inevitable and the aforementioned commitment to a six day letter delivery and collection service, which is virtually unique to the UK, is likely to be examined sooner rather than later.

Vince Cable responded to the joint management union call for extension of the current Universal Service Obligation conditions by repeating that the uniform six day service will stay at least until 2021.

The question is: has the viability of this been fully considered if, as expected, the regulator maintains its current stance? More importantly is it time for a wide ranging debate on the future of Royal Mail prior to the next General Election.

* Dave Warren has over thirty years experience in the UK postal industry both as a front line worker and senior trade union representative.

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