Royal Mail to be Privatised....

[TrainBrain185]

Can it get any worse? Another fine piece of British public owned service going to Jack S**T!!
The Queen should stop it happening. After all, its got the Royal name in it. I'm sick of everything going private owned, more often to non UK businesses and getting a lesser quality service at inflated prices to boot.

 

[MrC]

Trouble is the mail is getting used less and less as people and companies switch to electronic means, and this is apparently forecast to get much worse. So faced with this decline and the huge PO pension deficit it's not really surprising that the Government want the PO off the public books.

 

[TrainBrain185]

Trouble is the mail is getting used less and less as people and companies switch to electronic means, and this is apparently forecast to get much worse. So faced with this decline and the huge PO pension deficit it's not really surprising that the Government want the PO off the public books.

I'm told the downturn in mail is light mail such as your letters, cards etc. Whilst the Internet based home shopping is getting more popular and creating much more business. Roundabouts and swings I guess, but if you say its that bad for a public company, whats in it for private? Other than the filthy rich Directorships that will make another quick buck then run with a fat pension when it goes t*ts up? Thats generally what happens ain;t it?

 

[Greenback]

Yes, the nature of the mail being carried has changed and the volume is down on the peak years of the early 1990's, but the privatisation is another cynical attempt to shift the problem away from the government. No doubt it will be yet another knock down price in order to attract interest. Have we any national assests left now?

 

[MrC]

but if you say its that bad for a public company, whats in it for private?

Gawd knows. I guess the politicians don't really care as long as they see the back of it, plus some of the existing commercial delivery companies would jump at it - if only to remove a competitor and gain an existing distribution network. I forecast a lot of pain for those at the sharp end as usual

Oh, and an interesting write up on this by Robert Peston

 

[StoneRoad]

Can it get any worse? Another fine piece of British public owned service going to Jack S**T!!
The Queen should stop it happening. After all, its got the Royal name in it. I'm sick of everything going private owned, more often to non UK businesses and getting a lesser quality service at inflated prices to boot.

re-arrange the following:

off silver the selling family

That transaction is not going to reduce the budget deficit, as it is likely to need a massive sweetner!
and it will have to get the name changed - so who'll be paying for that!

And I don't think I'm being too cynical....

 

[scotsman]

Another Public service that was already screwed going up the creek. Expect jobs to go and prices to go up.

 

[rail-britain]

The quicker Royal Mail is privatised the better
I can then start using other providers!

 

[scotsman]

The quicker Royal Mail is privatised the better
I can then start using other providers!

Royal Mail has been open to competition since 2005...

 

[43034 The Black Horse]

Expand on that, rail-britain, if you will?

 

[rail-britain]

I am aware other postal providers are used, but this is extremely limited and mostly to pickup only
Final local delivery is still Royal Mail

So that when I post a letter, it uses my chosen company where the option exists
It has been suggested that Scotland (what a surprise) would be the trial area, where two mail operators would compete

The stamps will then have an option on them, to decide which carrier is used

So instead of First and Second Class, it would be (for example) Royal Mail Postage or DHL postage
Mail out of Scotland would then be collected by that provider
Mail inside Scotland would then be delivered by that provider
With careful planning one would be quicker than the other

So if you missed the first pickup, pay a different rate for the other

 

[Drsatan]

Privatising Royal Mail will be painful to some (especially Royal Mail employees who think they'll lose their jobs) but it's better than giving sugar cubes to a dying horse.

Of course, if Royal Mail was run properly then there would be no need to privatise the company.

 

[90019]

It has been suggested that Scotland (what a surprise) would be the trial area, where two mail operators would compete

I wouldn't be surprised if the other operator would be the DX.

 

[rail-britain]

If Royal Mail was run properly then there would be no need to privatise the company

If it was run properly, then it would have MASSIVE profits and would have been privatised years ago
Now it is going to go for peanuts, for a "real parcel" company to return it back to what it was...
Equally, they could separate it into businesses and identify the non-profitable components and argue for a subsidy (which is likely anyway)

 

[142094]

Have to say I don't believe the spiel I've read from the press saying that post volumes are falling - a few posties themselves have commented on how they have to deliver more these days than they ever have, normally due to those adverts that are put through the doors.

I can see this being a carbon copy of past Tory privatisations with utilities, buses and the railways to an extent: prices go higher every year, service levels stay the same or get worse, shareholders get the profits.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

One simple action that would make a real difference to RM would be if they abolished the two class service and reverted to the single class system that operated until the 1960s.

A huge amount of time - at great expense - is involved in sorting out the first class from the second class because only standard letters can be sorted by machine in this way.

And for what? The idea is to transmit the first class first and then the second class once all the first class has gone ( but no more than 24 hours later ).

If they didn't have to sort by class, the overall time taken would be considerably reduced which means that on average the transmission speed would improve.

A single class post could be priced easily enough by pitching it at the median point between the current first and second class ( which will not be ½ way between the two prices as volume of each needs to be taken into account.

It would be much simpler for users as well, which may encourage greater use of the system. ( A bit like rail fares in that respect really! )

The time involved in sorting the classes out is such that at busier locations the RM even provide separate pillar boxes for first and second class in an attempt to reduce the burden. This is quite common in parts of London, for example.

 

[Greenback]

The time taken to split first and second class mail is now much shorter than it used to be. Most of the time taken in mail processing is now getting the items through the sorting machines. Operations have also become very centralised - many people would be surprised that large flat letters from Fishguard for delivery to Carmarthen are sent to the West of England processing centre near Bristol to be sorted. Similarly, Reading, Swindon and Oxford centres were recently combined into one Thames Valley facility. The same thing has also happened in the West Midlands this year.

This has been done largely for economies of scale. The investment in new machinery could only be justified by employing that machinery as efficiently as possible, and that means using it for as many hours in the day as you can.

The difficulty in abolishing the two classes of mail is that most businesses want to post their mail as alte as possible, yet still have it despacthed that day. This would mean that all the letters and packets received at a mail centre today would need to be processed within a couple of hours. This is simply not possible, given the volumes that are still carried by the system.

The only way for it to work would be for two days to be the target delivery time for all of the mail. This would allow the mail to continue to be machine sorted through the night and following morning, before the collections begin again. I am not sure the public or government would accept the abandonment of the next day delivery target for first class items.

Of course, if this step was taken, then the guaranteed next day delivery services might be more attractive for really urgent items, and this could increase profitability too.

 

[142094]

Just wondering what the actual savings are on sending post to one big centre to be sorted? For example, if I send a 2nd class letter in York it first gets collected, sent to Leeman Rd sorting office, sent to Leeds and then forwarded on from there. So if that letter is going to somewhere else in York it is going further away to get sorted than it really needs to.

The idea about above only having one postage class is good, in many cases these days when receiving letters and cards from family, the 2nd class post comes 2 days or even the day after they sent it, when a few years back it took 4-5 days normally.

 

[mrcheek]

re-arrange the following:

off silver the selling family

That transaction is not going to reduce the budget deficit, as it is likely to need a massive sweetner!
and it will have to get the name changed - so who'll be paying for that!

And I don't think I'm being too cynical....

I remember some moron coined the "selling off the family silver" phrase in the 1980s, when they said that selling off British Telecom and British Gas was a bad idea. It was one of the first examples of a soundbite (ie a phrase used by idiots who arent intelligent enough to come up with rational debate, that is then accepted as a valid viewpoint by other idiots who are too stupid to think). What would be the point in keeping family silver if it serves no purpose, other than to cost you a fortune in insurance premiums?

In the 80s, BT and British Gas were two of the most appallingly run companies around, causing huge losses that were supported by the taxpayer.
Then the government privatised them. Service improved, and so did profits, meaning that these businesses were now paying millions in taxes to the government.

So logic suggest that the Royal Mail needs to be sold, and the market opened up fully to competition.

 

[rail-britain]

I regularly do tests to see how much longer a second class item takes
In most cases there is actually no difference

Examples :
Glasgow - Aberdeen : next day
Glasgow - Stornoway : two days
Glasgow - Bournemouth : First Class two days, Second Class three days
Glasgow - Cardiff : next day

I stopped sending items First Class years ago

 

[Greenback]

Just wondering what the actual savings are on sending post to one big centre to be sorted? For example, if I send a 2nd class letter in York it first gets collected, sent to Leeman Rd sorting office, sent to Leeds and then forwarded on from there. So if that letter is going to somewhere else in York it is going further away to get sorted than it really needs to.

The idea about above only having one postage class is good, in many cases these days when receiving letters and cards from family, the 2nd class post comes 2 days or even the day after they sent it, when a few years back it took 4-5 days normally.

I often wondered about this when I joined Royal Mail as a postman in the olate 1980's. Even then local 2nd class mailw as sent up form deepest West Wales to be sorted at Swansea, but first class was still despatched from Carmarthen. That ceased in 1993, when road improvements and a new office in Swansea meant it became feasible for late collections to be sent to Swansea for machine, rather than manual, sorting.

The savings, I suppose, of staff costs, heating and lighting, must more than offset the costs of sending a couple of lorries up the road and back. Bigger lorries will also have helped as well. It seems like madness, but the number crunchers must know what they're doing!

I regularly do tests to see how much longer a second class item takes
In most cases there is actually no difference

Examples :
Glasgow - Aberdeen : next day
Glasgow - Stornoway : two days
Glasgow - Bournemouth : First Class two days, Second Class three days
Glasgow - Cardiff : next day

I stopped sending items First Class years ago

The only way that second class items can be delivered the enxt day is if they are misstreamed into first class. This can happen through machine misreading or human error, or sometiems by metered mail being deliberately put into first class pouches by businesses, which is not then picked up. Obvioulsy this also has revenue implications for Royal Mail, and has been an area which has needed more atention for many years.

In the normal course of events, second class mail is not processed until the night and morning following collection.

For example, if I posted a letter 2nd class yesterday at midday, and it was going to Edinburgh, it would not even have left the Swansea mail centre until this lunchtime! It should then be delivered on Monday morning, with the first class mail posted today (In theory anyway!).

 

[class156]

I'm not really in favour of this because it's a plan by the tories to take away attention from the spending cuts, that and the tories are doing what they love best, privatising previosly nationalised companies. :roll:

 

[Tom B]

I refuse to buy a first class stamp these days. If I put one on an item of post and it would DEFINITELY get the item to the recipient by tomorrow morning, I would happily use one. However, I find that this is rarely the case. Second class post is generally the same length of time for a cheaper price. My experience of Royal Mail's attitude - from top managers to counter staff - is that they really don't give a ****.

As an aside, this whole argument over Post Office closures really confuses me, too. Post Offices, in my experience, are generally packed with a queue - even those which were supposed to be down for closure! And this does lose them trade - I'm not going to buy my stamps and envelopes at the Post Office if I can buy them from Tescos and get served quickly.

 

[Greenback]

It's a logistical impossibility to definitely be able to deliver every on eof th first class items the next day! A very small percentage, it used to be about 0.001%, are accidentally chewed up by the sorting machines. It's probably even lower now, but even such a low percentage would eqaul many thousands of items.

I rarely buy envelopes at a post office. I do buy stamps though, as it's the only way I cna be certain that an odd shaped, thick or large letter gets the correct postage on it! There is normally a bit of queue, even in what you would think of as the quieter part of the afternoon, but then I find it pretty rare that I don't have to wait in a supermarket either.

 

[mrcheek]

I'm not really in favour of this because it's a plan by the tories to take away attention from the spending cuts, that and the tories are doing what they love best, privatising previosly nationalised companies. :roll:

HURRAH!!!!!!

The Tories make money for the taxpayer by selling things. Whereas Labour cost the country billions by deliberately bankrupting and effectively renationalising Railtrack.

And I very much doubt that anything will succeed in taking attention away from the huge spedning cuts that are necessary due to the 13 years of labour's economic mismanagement of the country.

 

[313103]

HURRAH!!!!!!

The Tories make money for the taxpayer by selling things. Whereas Labour cost the country billions by deliberately bankrupting and effectively renationalising Railtrack.

And I very much doubt that anything will succeed in taking attention away from the huge spedning cuts that are necessary due to the 13 years of labour's economic mismanagement of the country.

Just hope your not one of the 250,000 estimated people who are going to lose there jobs as part of the ConDem government cuts in the public sector.

However how do you draw the corolation between Railtrack being made bankrupt and it costing the country billions?

Surely the railways being sold off too cheaply (as part of the original tory plans to sell the family silver) cost this country as much billions of pounds.

 

[mrcheek]

Just hope your not one of the 250,000 estimated people who are going to lose there jobs as part of the ConDem government cuts in the public sector.

However how do you draw the corolation between Railtrack being made bankrupt and it costing the country billions?

Surely the railways being sold off too cheaply (as part of the original tory plans to sell the family silver) cost this country as much billions of pounds.

I dont work in the public sector, I have a real job!

Since Railtrack was illegally bankrupted by the Labour government, its role has been taken by the bottomless pit of cash that is known as Network Rail, who have spent fortunes on a plush estate for its boss, and payoffs for sexually harrassed ex-employees. Not so much on railway services and infrastructure...

 

[313103]

I dont work in the public sector, I have a real job!

So thats the im ok jack attitude.
So you dont work on the railways in any capacity, because thats not a real job, you dont work for Royal Mail in any capacity, because thats not a real job, you dont work within the NHS in any capacity, because thats not a real job, you dont work for any council in any capacity, because thats not a real job, you dont work for any retail outlet in any capacity, because that is not a real job. My oh my what job do you really do as i am quite intrigued (actually im not).

Your real job must really important that i cant work out what it is, however it would appear that we dont need train drivers, we dont need any postmen/women, we dont need any doctors or nurses, we dont any roadsweepers or dustmen, we dont need a cheeckout girl or stack filler in a supermarket as they are not real jobs!

 

[mrcheek]

So thats the im ok jack attitude.
So you dont work on the railways in any capacity, because thats not a real job, you dont work for Royal Mail in any capacity, because thats not a real job, you dont work within the NHS in any capacity, because thats not a real job, you dont work for any council in any capacity, because thats not a real job, you dont work for any retail outlet in any capacity, because that is not a real job. My oh my what job do you really do as i am quite intrigued (actually im not).

Your real job must really important that i cant work out what it is, however it would appear that we dont need train drivers, we dont need any postmen/women, we dont need any doctors or nurses, we dont any roadsweepers or dustmen, we dont need a cheeckout girl or stack filler in a supermarket as they are not real jobs!

I must have missed the supermarkets all being nationalised....

 

[313103]

Since Railtrack was illegally bankrupted by the Labour government, its role has been taken by the bottomless pit of cash that is known as Network Rail, who have spent fortunes on a plush estate for its boss, and payoffs for sexually harrassed ex-employees. Not so much on railway services and infrastructure...

Pray do tell how did the Labour Goverment make Railtrack 'Illegally bankrupt'?
Wasnt Railtrack broke long before the Labour Government got its dirty little hands on it? Didnt railtrack managers make money for its Managers and shareholders and then offer contracts to its friends in government who more or less never maintained britains railways therefore directly causing the Potters Bar train crash (JARVIS! that had a leading tory and former government minister as its non executive director who then then blamed it on sabotage). So Network rail came in and exactly as railtarck did in the past. NOTHING the only exception is that there was no shareholders to pay out to.