flying twigs

Is there hope on the horizon for Royal Mail?

In March 2023, under the title Royal Mail Is Undermining The Postal Service, I wrote that the parent company of Royal Mail had approached Government to ask for a five day letter delivery. The carrot they threw to sweeten the request was a declaration of continuing to improve parcel services.

In the context of mail delivery it is important to understand the Universal Service Obligation (USO). It is a mandate requiring the Royal Mail, as the UK’s Universal Service Provider, to deliver letters at least once daily from Monday to Saturday to every address, to ensure affordable and geographically uniform pricing, and to make daily collections.

This is already breached if you believe that £1.65 for a first-class stamp is not affordable for all. Of course, for one letter it might be affordable, but if a person has a regular letter correspondence once a week with let’s say five people, that works out at over £400 a year. A not inconsiderable number of people would have to weigh up that cost against food on the table.

Or let’s say someone sends birthday cards, get well cards, leaving cards, anniversary cards, and ‘just because’ cards to friends and family. It is easy to imagine they would send 100 cards in a year. If you think that is excessive, card publishers sell cards to customers who buy twenty or more cards at a time, several times a year.

Royal Mail Review Request

In April 2024 Royal Mail requested a review of the USO, citing changing customer needs and rising costs, and said it was considering changes like reducing second-class deliveries to every other day.

The proposals are under review and it is easy to imagine that the changes could be pushed through because this Government is under strain from the state of the economy.

Unbelievably, the regulator Ofcom (the regulator for the communications services) suggested that Royal Mail could reduce the number of delivery days from six to as few as three per week for all letters.

EP Group To Buy Royal Mail

Is there hope on the horizon? There might be. In December the path was cleared for EP Group controlled by the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky to buy Royal Mail. It makes sense because the EP Group manufactures packaging materials, so they would have a customer base in every Post Office.

The British Government’s own website carries the statement

“Government reaches legally binding agreement with EP Group that protects Royal Mail’s workers and key services whilst keeping it headquartered in the UK”

Now we have to see what requests the EP Group may submit to Government in its delivery commitments. Hopefully they will shelve the requests of the previous owners. And hopefully Ofcom will wake up the fact that a postal service is and should continue to be a daily service.