I've seen nothing in the report to convince me that RM shouldn't have
remained a state monpoly.

His recommendation to find a minority private stakeholder looks to me like
he's just paid lip-service to any notion of independence, and is carrying
out the politicos' wishes to get mail privatised come what may. There's no
vision. There's no clarity of thought. There's no imagination.

In his report, Hooper acknowledges the present state of affairs is a
disaster. I believe that had the state monopoly not been threatened with
the advent of competition, we would be fairly contented when turning our
minds to matters postal- the public, and we, used to be justifiably proud of
our Post Office- it was an excellent and fair service, the envy of the
world: only since competition was introduced has the service been run down,
and the poorer.

I concede that there could have been moves to make it more efficient, and
thus cheaper/ and/or/ more profitable; I don't think, though, that
competition is the way to do it, and preserve the USO.

Reading the Questions about overall objectives (which is why we're all here,
after all...), I am at a loss to understand why competition and privateering
is felt to be desirable, except obvious self-interest).

Responses to those questions tell a story. Everyone is happy with RM as an
entity, with it's position in the market, and it's having sole obligation to
the USO.

The main concerns about RM seem to be price, q of s, reliability, and choice
of products.

I don't have a problem with people setting up businesses to handle mail/bulk
postings/letter-stuffing/etc. They can source/collect and sort and bring it
all to the delivery offices if they wish, just as now.

Everyone, almost, appears to want to see transparency of costs within RM: if
RM remains a state owned company, fair enough.

So; price, q of s, reliability, and choice of products.

Is it really necessary to hive off part, a half, virtually, of RM- and to
foreign investors- to achieve desirable results there?

Commercial interests were recognised to have made criticisms without any
evidence to back them up during the investigations made prior to the report.
(hmmm...sounds familiar)

It is acknowledged that DA is priced too low (which I have been saying for a
long time), and that it should cover costs and provide a reasonable profit.

It also understands that commercial operators were likely to cherry-pick,
thus undermining the USO unless some remedy to this be found. Perhaps if
DA was set at realistic levels, and RM was at least guaranteed price
stability in real terms and was free to introduce new products and services,
the costs of the USO could be covered.

RM would have to stay within acceptable price limits. Even I understand
that putting prices up willy-nilly is only likely to lose business.

Customers want a frequent, reliable, dependable and high-quality service.
Since the introduction of competition, we have seen a shift in quality and
quantity of service from RM that many see as a depreciation in service
levels- no more second delivery, only one daily collection, later, less
predictable deliveries, PO closures, etc.

RM has subsequently also lost a share of the bulk market (up to 40%) which
has had "a negative impact on the company's financial health".

It is "generally accepted" that only the large business users of RM have
benefitted although it appears at least one person is complaining that we
are not doing enough of his/her work for the money he/she is getting because
of our presentation requirements.

SMEs and domestic consumers have been adversely affected except on
deadline-delivery performance, which has been successfully improved.

Much is made of the decline in mail volumes, yet revenues are up since
e-fulfillment yields more than has been lost to e-substitution. It is
perverse of RM's Board to claim that the company did not expect to recover
those revenues. GET OUT THERE AND FIGHT FOR THE BUSINESS!!!

If you ask certain people, and I have, about the volume of traffic going out
on delivery this year compared to last, you'll be told, as I was, that there
is about 3% less this year (there is a margin of error here since methods of
assessing volumes have changed).

It's significant, granted, but it generally doesn't mean I deliver to less
houses. And where a few years ago I may have had a few more letters, I now
carry much more weight. This makes the job harder for me, and slows me
down; but, weight=revenue, and size=revenue. Check out the size and weight
of The National Trust mail, or She magazine, or Sky magazine. It is
reasonable to assert that the value of my bags is now greater compared to
the past, at least the recent past.

As for my having to deliver yet more mail in less time at a speed comparable
with the Light Infantry; this time I shall say no more except I have a
picture in my mind's eye of Mr. Crozier walking briskly about the Boardroom
table, down the corridor to his brisk (but warm, like Ms Moneypenny) PA's
office, dictating in double-quick time, before briskly going to the loo and
briskly back to his office for a brisk cup of coffee whilst he briskly
catches up on his notes before briskly compiling more notes and briskly
presenting his latest ideas to a pricked-eared, state-of-alert Allen
Leighton for his brisk attention and brisk response before they briskly call
for a brisk rickshaw to briskly ferry them to who knows where for a brisk
who knows what with a brisk who knows whom in a brisk attempt at
cost-cutting.

Clearly the present flaws with the postal service are intrinsicly linked to the loss of the monopoly. Now, the postal service has to keep its obligation to deliver all over the country whilst competing with private companies over the most profitable areas. That is not a fair competition. Keep the postal service public and reinstate the monopoly

Well said Paul Bell regarding greedy management and privatization.

Post Office closed by order of Brussels. EU Directive 97/67/EC 'Privatization of Postal Services', issued on 15 December 1997, began the introduction of an EU-wide postal service and immediately reduced the Royal Mail's monopoly to mail weighing less than 350 grammes.

The delivery of mail over that weight was privatized, which meant that foreign companies mainly the Dutch TNT and the German 'Deutsche Post' (trading as DHL) were able to cherry pick the profitable areas of mail services in this country, leaving the loss making areas to the Royal Mail.
Royal Mail profits plummeted

A second Postal Service Directive in 2002 further reduced the Royal Mail monopoly to 50 grammes. From 2009 the Royal Mail monopoly will be phased out completely.

Brussels in control
Instructions from Brussels to Foreign Secretary David Milliband
(dated 28 November 2007) leaves no doubt that the EU is in control of our postal services. It unequivocally states 'The transformation programme will involve POL [Post Office Limited] reducing the size of its post office network by around 2,500 branches'

Source- www.eurosceptic.org.uk/timefortruth

Oh, and Samuel, I not wholly convinced that quoting Massa' Phil Woolas, scourge of the Other, is an effective tactic when trying to construct a credible argument.

I didn't actually suggest they were responsible for their actions, oh Anonymous One, but I daresay they will burn in hell all the same.

'Martyn, I think you'll find that old men, and particularly politicians of limited insight and even less moral capacity, once well past their prime and hallucinating freely about saving the world, the banking system, the Royal Mail, discount vouchers for Xmas shopping, and the like, are usually over-familiar with young women. They seem to think they can get away with it by hiding behind their age, their position, and their barely concealed Alzheimers.'

If they have Alzheimers then they are not responsible for their actions SG. I have yet to explore the wider possibilities of this situation. I'll let you know.

I would encourage people to find out if their local council is going to use its new powers under the Sustainable Communities Act - This can be a very powerful too for stopping the closure of local post offices.

The Sustainable Communities Act gives new powers to communities and their elected councils to drive government policy to tackle local economic, social and environmental issues. It was supported by 80 national organisations, 300 local organisations, over 1000 parish and town councils and thousands of individuals.

It is a remarkable piece of legislation: for the first time we have an Act of Parliament that discards the usual top-down decision making and also the nonsense that ‘consultation’ by the government is somehow empowering (when the opposite is the case as most people know).

This Act is special because it establishes for the first time a co-operative method of decision making, so that all the decisions are no longer made at the centre.

It is an Act that can empower citizens and will give effect to what the sponsors argued for the 5 years of the campaign that:

‘citizens and councils are the experts on their own problems and the solutions to them’

It is, as Government Minister Phil Woolas told the House of Commons on 15 June 2007 one of the most important such Acts in the last 40 years because as he said: ‘I genuinely believe that it will change the relationships in British politics’.

The Act gives you power over decisions which affect your life.

See the Unlock Democracy website for more details.

www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk

If you think you have a third class postal service I suggest you haven't travelled much!
The Universal Service Obligation is a huge loss maker for Royal Mail.Rejoice in the fact that this esteemed organisation subsidises this loss making part of it's business.

Since the introduction of regulation Royal Mail has operated with one arm and one leg tied behind it's back.
How easy it is to knock a service that the vast majority of people in this country get on the cheap!

Martyn, I think you'll find that old men, and particularly politicians of limited insight and even less moral capacity, once well past their prime and hallucinating freely about saving the world, the banking system, the Royal Mail, discount vouchers for Xmas shopping, and the like, are usually over-familiar with young women. They seem to think they can get away with it by hiding behind their age, their position, and their barely concealed Alzheimers.

"Dear Sally" ?????? That's a bit familiar, isn't it SalfordGal ?

One of the problems here is lack of, or distorted, numbers. No-one really knows what Royal Mail's commercial financial position is. That isn't helped by Compass's effort -

- Each post office contributes around £310,000 to the local economy each year, of which £120,000 is direct spending on local goods and services.

- Each post office saves small businesses in their direct vicinity in the region of £270,000 each year.

I don't understand what "contributing to the local economy" means, nor how that "contribution" comes to be diverted into "direct spending on local goods". I'm sure there is some sense in it, but it seems to be written in obscure code.

If it is true that a post office is "saving small businesses money", why are they doing that. Why are they not charging those small businesses marketable arms-length rates ? After all, Royal Mail is not part of the business grant network, is it ?

Having said all that, we all know this government's track record in deceit and incompetence, so we can be certain that WHATEVER this government tries to do it will screw it up for everybody except a small number of offshoreistas depositing their billions in the Cayman Isles and Gordon's pension fund.

I don't honestly know the facts well enough to say whether Royal Mail has a viable future. But I do know that this government hasn't.

I also know that as our recession deepens over the next 18-24 months, the last thing we need to do is to open up the possibility of massive numbers of redundancies serving no end other than Brownite dogma.

This sad, pervy, old stalker seems to be writing to me an awful lot lately. Now he's talking about bringing some private sector third party into the Royal Mail to strip it of its profits and dump all of the costs onto the taxpayer. What a way to run a business! And what a way to fleece a country! The New Labour strategy is to give it all to the banks and other corporates and the super rich and leave a desert for ordinary people who depend on an effective, active and honest state:

Dear Sally

I am writing to you about today's announcement of the Hooper Report on the future of the Royal Mail.

The universal service helps to bind us together as a country. It guarantees 28 million homes and businesses across the country mail deliveries six days a week, with one price goes anywhere. The Hooper report warns that the universal service is now under threat. The status quo is untenable. The choice we face is either downgrading the service as we manage decline or acting now to turn things round and secure the Royal Mail's future.

The threat to the Royal Mail and the universal service comes from the impact of changes in technology and consumer choice. In this country 60 billion text messages were sent last year, while we posted five million fewer letters than two years ago. This shift has cost Royal Mail an estimated £500 million in profits. That is five times the impact of business lost to other postal companies in the liberalised market. Making these other companies go away is not the answer to the Royal Mail succeeding.

We will fufil our manifesto commitment to "a publicly owned Royal Mail fully restored to good health, providing customers with an excellent service and its employees with rewarding employment". Bringing in a partner through a minority stake in the Royal Mail's postal business will help us to deliver that goal. It will bring the Royal Mail fresh investment, new opportunities to grow in Europe and internationally, and to offer new services. It will provide a fresh impetus to modernising the Royal Mail and securing the universal service.

Alongside a strategic partnership for the Royal Mail we will reform regulation to more effectively support the universal service. And we will help the Royal Mail tackle its ballooning pension fund deficit. This will not impact on Post Office counters in anyway.

I hope you will agree with me that this is the best way to save the Royal Mail and its universal service guarantee.

Yours

Gordon

In my book, a "strategic partnership" is a clear breach of an election commitment to maintain a publically owned Royal Mail whichever way you slice and dice it. Pathetic, lying, drivel. Maybe its a Mandy plan to create a phoney PFI (or even PFIs, plural) where all the profits float to the Cayman Islands or Jersey, or some such centre specialising in tax evasion on a grand scale and in laundering corrupt payments, over the next forty or so years. Pathetically corrupt in concept and outcome.

But on the other hand, it is possible to argue, at least on purely aesthetic grounds, that privatising any part of the Royal Mail might can best be seen as the crowning touch of New Labour's unhinged addiction to the nihilist ideology of its scorched earth economic policies. Kind of fitting, really.

The reason why the Royal Mail is rubbish is because the senior management are running down the service to get public support for privatisation. These greedy executives can't wait to get more bonuses and share options...it makes me sick. It is time we started to deselect MPs who are blinded with this discrdited notion of privatisation.

Unlike the 3rd Class postal service we have at present?