Post Office Flotation....mistake!

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23249466
Generally I agree with privatisation but certain things should remain under state control and I think the post office is one of them. Rather disturbingly for me I found myself agreeing with a union guy on News 24 this morning when he said that within a couple of years they'll only be delivering mail to the profitable areas and the rural areas won't get much of a service. What do you think?

[factor-fiction]

I know it doesn't affect your points but the Post Office is not part of the floatation- it's Royal Mail that will be floated

[ToraToraTora]

Yes I meant royal mail.

[factor-fiction]

and now to correct myself- it's FLOTATION

[Gromit]

If it is privatised, it will have to change.

They will cut the workforce (There have already been 15,000 jobs lost in order to fatten it up for privatisation). That will mean the service will not be as good.

The cost of posting a letter will need to rise by a significant amount.

There will be a premium for posting to remote areas (There will not be a universal price)

As with the utilities sell offs in the eighties, the money raised by the sale will be squandered.

[Canary42]

Of course it's right - all public services which are privatised suffer when profit comes before people which is what always happens. E.g. Bus services no longer run to lesser populated areas, or at lesser-used hours.

Furthermore we lose control of our country's infrastructure - most of our Public Utilities are now in foreign hands. RM will go the same way.

[factor-fiction]

I think we need to wait to see the proposed terms of the flotation. I'd expect there to be some guarantees about retaining a universal daily service but we'll have to wait and see. The union are probably more concerned about jobs and pay than on the service to the public but know how to use scare tactics to win support

[Gromit]

The Post Office will be sold. It is a subsidiary of Royal Mail. As is ParcelForce.

[LoftyLottie]

Bring back the old horse and carriage delivery service!! Probably more reliable and probably cheaper. Yes, I agree the postal system should not be privatised.

[factor-fiction]

Hi Gromit- the article says:
"The flotation will not include the Post Office. The two are separate companies with independent boards. The Royal Mail sorts and delivers letters and parcels, while the Post Office is the national network of branches that offer postal, governmental and financial services. The Post Office itself is not for sale."

[jno]

unless safeguards for rural areas are imposed (which will make it less attractive to bidders) it'll be like the buses: millions of them going between London and Oxford every day, one a month to outlying areas.

I understand your political qualms about agreeing with unionists, but as you have always been more patriotic than some moaners (I remember you predicted, correctly, that the Olympics would be a success), you probably see the mail service, like public transport, as one of the forms of glue that holds the nation together.

[Gromit]

Thanks factor-fiction, I stand corrected.

So the company will be broken up prior to privatisation. Sounds costly. Wonder what happens to the hugely proftable ParcelForce?

[Hopkirk]

I don't have a problem with selling it off, as long as there are controls in place.

[mikey4444]

Even Thatcher, who sold off everything that wasn't nailed down, baulked from selling off postal deliveries. Look what has happened to all the other utilities that have been privatised...high prices, haphazard services and foreign fat cats making money at our expense.

Also, lets get it clear what the Tories mean by privatisation. The Royal Mail belongs to us taxpayers, in the same way as The Water Board, The Gas Board, The Electric Board and GPO Telephones did. But the Tories managed to fool us into paying for something that we already owned in the first place.

This is like a burglar breaking into your house by the back door, stealing everything and then going around to the front door and selling it back to you !

[factor-fiction]

You've made that analogy before Mikey and to me it doesn't work because the money raised from a sale goes back to the treasury

[Gromit]

jno

Rather than Privatisation of the buses, I think you mean they were deregulated. But London was exempt from the Act and unlike the rest of the country, the capital buses are regulated.

[Sqad]

mikey.......Postal delivery was cr@p in the UK ten years ago and although i haven't lived in the UK for the last 12 years, I find it difficult to believe that it has improved.
Before I left the UK I complained to the Regional Post Office that on one day the whole of the Close, 30 houses had no mail and that had happened on several occasions before.

Is that acceptable? Can it get worse with "Privatisation?"

The answer will depend upon your political persuasion.

[mikey4444]

Sqad...I always thought you lived in Wild Wales ? Maybe my mistake !

Anyway, you may be right about a poor service in rural areas at some time in the past but will it get better if it is hived off ? Is it reasonable to expect the cost of a first class stamp to remain the same if the letter has to travel 10 miles or 800 miles. Logic would say that it is unlikely that postal deliveries in rural areas will improve after privatisation.

[factor-fiction]

Certainly the service has deteriorated over the last 10-20 years. I used to get my post before I went to work in the morning at around 7.30am. Now I'm lucky if it comes before 3pm, and then it's usually leaflets from Virgin etc I don't want. And yet the price of posting a letter has increased significantly over this period. I suppose it's inevitable though given that most communication that used to be done by post is now done via internet banking, emails, mobile calls.

[mikey4444]

But, factor-fiction, will it get better if the Royal Mail is stolen away and sold back us ? Do you think that you will still get a delivery on a Saturday for instance !

And do you think that the cost of posting a letter from, say Exeter to Edinburgh will still remain the same ? I know what I think will happen but what do you believe ?

[chrisgel]

Not forgetting of course that the Royal Mail had it's monopoly removed from it around 8 or 9 years ago when firms like UKmail and TNT were allowed to move into the business/mass mailing market which accounted for 85% of Royal Mails business.
These private mail companies collect said mail and sort it in their own depots and it is then passed to RM to distribute and deliver. This includes the "last mile" delivery to your door which is the most expensive element within the chain.