The Queen's head on postage stamps.

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/2vb99hg

So a new law is to be passed to ensure that the Queen's head (says nothing about the king's head) remains on postage stamps after the planned privatisation of the Royal Mail.

Whether or not anyone is interested about the introduction of this new law, wouldn't it have also been an idea to introduce such restrictive laws on some of the past privatisations?

[THECORBYLOON]

ooooooooooooooh...had a reply to that email you were going to send to yir pal, the big boss at Royal Mail?

[DTCwordfan]

So PostDog (or others) if you were the Chairman of the RM how would you get out of the pickle that they are in. And consequently look to deliver an efficient service, up employee and public confidence, and at the same time make a reasonable return (say 8%+ on Capital Employed)?

[Postdog]

Corbyloon you can't win with this guy. He had a rant about Royal Mail a few weeks ago, and would not accept that because of why (delivery to the states), it may not have been down to them. There was more to it than that but the bottom line is that I was wrong, everyone else who said the same was wrong, and he was right. I would be interested to know if he used his connections and got a definitive answer as to why they weren't delivered.

My answer on here (as on that post) is based of experience within the industry. When I joined RM it was highly profitable, but successive interference as a result of EU dictates have eroded that. Admittedly there are other factors to do with the times we live in now that have affected the business, but the deregulation/competition is akin to Tescos being asked to clear space in stores to sell stuff from other supermarkets - totally unfair and ultimately detrimental to Tescos profitability and ability to invest.

[DTCwordfan]

Actually I have.

[DTCwordfan]

There were consioerable issues apparently in the main office that led to a serious back-log in deliveries.

Your point on Tesco's is askew because Tescos has direct competition. The RM does not, only indirect. For the moment.

[THECORBYLOON]

I know he was mumping, that's why I asked. By the way I know that millions of items going missing sounds terrible but 99.95 percent does not go missing.

[THECORBYLOON]

How many private companies will want to agree to deliver a universal post in the UK for a set price no matter where the address is in the UK?

[alexanderd]

When I worked for a parcel delivery company they went by weight, distance was immaterial

[DTCwordfan]

A good point but from what I have read and heard, there are those within the RM that are challenging the thinking of this one - which I guess came in from Rowland Hill days.....and the cracks are showing as major companies like Amazon are striking preferential bulk deals, though this isnt yet geography driven.

[Postdog]

Duh. Tescos does have direct competition, but you missed the point. Those other stores can sell their stuff in their own shops, but the competition to Royal Mail is dependent on Royal Mail to deliver because they have no means of their own to do that. For arguments sake let's say a NEW supermarket was set up and they were told don't bother getting shops, but to use space in Tescos. They make a profit because they have no overheads, but poor old Tesco gets the rough end of the deal.

[DTCwordfan]

Ok I get your drift now - overtly that would be unfair unless proper compensation was agreed for the disposal or use of assets.

This has been done before and I cite the deregulation of British Gas with the hiving off of Transco to provide a common service with tariffs based on quantity, load and time of consumption, and a number of other factors. British Gas marketing and supply services into the system competed in an increasingl;y open market, albeit with one of their hands tied behind their backs for the first two years in each market segment in that they had to reduce market share.

I would think that a system could be devised for the RM to ensure the arrival of competition and allowing RM to compete.

What surprises me though is that there isnt a push to increase their business by opening up their services to other businesses overseas. If they are truly good at what they do, their consultancy business should be worth a bundle. For example on this, Shell took its internal refining and products tech services to the open market, not only in oil but now they cover mining, car building, racing, power plants and a host of other industries and in doing so I gather have generated revenues of over a billion a year and 20 million to their profit pile.

[BertiWooster]

It is indeed the case that the Regulator has opened up the uk Postal market , to competition , without the reciprocal action being taken in other foreign markets .
The result is - as Postdog mentions - that your DHL's etc have cherry picked the profitable bits of the market , leaving RM to provide the universal service .

This is not the only problem affecting RM , but it is a significant factor .

Successive Governments have always taken most of the profits made by RM without re-investing in the Business

[Andyvon]

I just fear the Royal Mail will go the way of other state-owned concerns that were privatised. It all boils down to two facts - there will be huge job losses and the price of the service will go through the roof and continue to rise thereafter.

Also, as we have seen with other former state-owned industries, they cease to be owned and controlled by British interests and end up being owned by foreign concerns or just disappear altogether.