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Royal Mail has written to customers explaining major changes it has proposed amid “huge financial pressure”. The postal delivery service has warned that it “will not survive without urgent reform” to its operation.
This morning Royal Mail revealed plans it has put forward to the industry watchdog Ofcom, proposing to scrap second-class letter deliveries on Saturdays and cut the service to every other weekday. In its submission to Ofcom’s consultation on the future of the universal postal service, Royal Mail said its proposals would see all non-first-class letter deliveries – including second class and bulk business mail – reduced to every other day during the week.
It would keep a six-day-a-week service for first-class mail in a climbdown on previous calls for all Saturday letter deliveries to be scrapped. Royal Mail said the proposals, if given the go-ahead, would save it up to £300 million a year but there would be “fewer than 1,000” voluntary redundancies as the plans would mean daily delivery routes cut by between 7,000 to 9,000 within two years.
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Ofcom has been consulting on the postal reforms since January, with a deadline set for today (April 3). The regulator aims to report back with an update in the summer, and Royal Mail has called on Ofcom to put the changes in place by April next year.
It has now released a letter addressed to ‘our customers across the UK’, signed off by chief customer officer Nick Landon, seeking to explain the proposed changes. It reads:
Dear customer,
At Royal Mail, we consider it a privilege to serve every household and business in the UK. For 500 years, our posties have walked up and down our streets, day in, day out, to deliver for our customers.
But the way we all use the post has changed dramatically. In 2004/5, we posted 20 billion letters. By 2022/3, that number had dropped to seven billion. The average address now receives just four letters a week. As a result, Royal Mail is facing huge financial pressure. Last year, we lost £419 million.
Without urgent reform, there is real risk that the one-price-goes-anywhere Universal Service, the legal requirement for Royal Mail to deliver to the UK’s 32 million addresses six days a week, will not survive. We have published our proposal for how the Universal Service should change in a way that protects the things we know you value:
▪ The one-price-goes-anywhere service to all parts of the UK
▪ First Class letters delivered daily, six days a week
▪ The choice between a First Class and Second Class letter service
▪ Parcels delivered up to seven days a week as currently
Our proposal also includes some vital changes to deliver a more efficient and financially sustainable service. As part of this, all non-First Class letter deliveries – Second Class and bulk business mail often used for letters such as bills and statements – would move to every other weekday. And we would like to add tracking to Universal Service parcels to reflect customer demand.
We know how important it is to receive NHS letters, so we are also working with the NHS to explore options that could provide more reliability for time-sensitive medical letters. With reform we would be able to invest in products and services we know you need and want. Services that will help you grow your business or stay connected to your loved ones.
If we want to save the Universal Service, we have to change the Universal Service. We’re doing everything we can to transform so that we can serve you better. And now we need Ofcom, the regulator, to do their bit and implement the change.
