Another competitor to Royal Mail
The postal regulator Postcomm is minded, subject to consultation, to grant a licence to a company called Document Outsourcing Limited. It believes that the proposed licence will further the interests of postal users by promoting competition between postal operators and that it will have no adverse effect on the provision of a universal postal service in the United Kingdom.
Postcomm has just started a 30-day consultation on the proposed grant of a postal operator's licence to Document Outsourcing Limited.
Under the licensing framework that took effect from 1 January 2006, and was amended in January 2008, the licence would:
* allow Document Outsourcing Limited to provide all types of postal service;
* be issued for a rolling ten year period; and
* require the company to comply with codes of practice on mail integrity (safety and security of the mail) and common operational procedures (designed to ensure the multi-operator market works well in practice).
Postcomm has just started a 30-day consultation on the proposed grant of a postal operator's licence to Document Outsourcing Limited.
Under the licensing framework that took effect from 1 January 2006, and was amended in January 2008, the licence would:
* allow Document Outsourcing Limited to provide all types of postal service;
* be issued for a rolling ten year period; and
* require the company to comply with codes of practice on mail integrity (safety and security of the mail) and common operational procedures (designed to ensure the multi-operator market works well in practice).
posted by Postwatch at 1:56 pm
5 Comments:
It would be great to have mail redirected through a completely new postal service, the current one, as we are all aware, seem to have itchy fingers and an awful lot of mail goes undelivered (theft basically). when the royal mail receive such complaints they completely ignore or state 'the person who sent the mail needs to bring this to our attention'. they can never address this problem area and basically are completely not trustworthy and infact disgust me. even if the blog author does not show these comments atleast he/she will be fully aware that we know what goes on behind royal mails closed doors (talk to carol woods and alike, they monitor her mail and only give junk or what they feel she can have (this has been going on for over 4 years now, no one will look into it at royal mail because its them).. how many other people is this having an effect on, me being another, vouchers stolen when royal mail said they've delivered the same, rubbish.. WE WANT ALL OUR MAIL NOT WHAT ROYAL MAIL DECIDE TO STEAL.. i have put anonymous simply because i do not have a blogger account or a url id... not that i can't back up in documentation what i state and also carol woods and alike..
I dont get it.
With all the money RM is loosing, and if i understand correctly RMG is loosing, causing them to stop collections and change working hours, WHY oh WHY to Postcomm allow new mail companies to start, does it seem more logical to have one mail serve that has the money to give a good service, rather than making the 'national' mail service rubbish and allow other competitors?
Or is it just me?
I completely agree with the above comments. The Royal Mail is a national embarrassment and while they do have a lot of decent and hard working staff there is also a large element of lazy and untrustworthy people. Working practices are a joke and wouldn't be tolerated in the private sector.
The first private company to build a national collection and delivery network (if possible) will easily claim a lot of customers from the Royal Mail.
The RM need to get a grip and root out its rotten core if it wants to stay in business and give the public a service that we were once very proud of.
On another note, why are so many RM workers not wearing a proper and complete uniform? I've seen some delivery staff look like scruffy school boys. If they have no pride in their appearance then how can they have any pride in their job and duty?
Gary.
What I don't get is if the Royal Mail reckon they are making a loss, how come these other companies think there may be a profit in delivering mail?
In response to the last anonymous commentor - before market liberalisation, Royal Mail made a healthy profit; the revenue from commercial work (ie delivering large amounts of letters for business and other large organisations) covered the cost of meeting their universal service obligation (ie collecting mail from every postbox and delivering mail to every single address daily, and charging a flat price to send a letter or parcel anywhere in the UK), subsidising unprofitable post offices, and still leaving a considerable profit to pay back to the Government to the benefit of the taxpayer.
Market liberalisation means that other companies - ones without any sort of service obligation - are able to "cherry-pick" the lucrative jobs, leaving Royal Mail with no way to subsidise its USO or unprofitable Post Offices and bringing us to the current situation.
It's not that delivering mail is inherently unprofitable - far from it - it's that a universal service in the UK (where, I might add, the cost of a stamp is among the lowest in Europe) is.
To the other commentors wishing for the demise of Royal Mail: Royal Mail are not alone in having "itchy-fingered" employees. Because, as you note, there are no other competing end-to-end postal companies in the UK I don't have a wealth of examples to draw upon, but might I remind you that the HMRC discs were lost by their private mail contractor, TNT?
The fact is, there are a minority of people who will take unethical advantage of the situations they find themselves in. If Royal Mail, with its decent wages and engrained culture of "every letter is important", can't completely deter such behaviour, I can't imagine its cut-price competitors faring much better.
And besides, with universal service being so unprofitable, only a government-backed (and not entirely profit-driven) company will ever be realistically able to offer such a service.
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