Royal Mail's 350 year monopoly is to end at the start of 2006.

This apparently is 15 months earlier than originally planned.

What are peoples feelings on this? Is a more competitive environment what is needed?

I think Royal mail provide a horrible service but I'm not too sure this is the right way forward.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4274335.stm

I think competition is the best way forward. Currently, the monopoly situation means that even though you know that a large pecentage of post gets lost or delayed with Royal Mail, there is no alternative but to use them. Competition means more choice for the consumer and competitive pricing could mean cheaper postage costs. A competitive environment also breeds efficiency.

I agree, it certainly does to an extent. However, there are instances and situations where it won't work for whatever reason and I think this could be one of them.

Actually, the competition will probably not be as you imagine... Sorry to burst the bubble, but the companies that set up to compete with Royal Mail will not have their own mail sorting infrastructure, and will in fact use Royal Mail's - certainly to begin with. I also doubt very much that Joe Public will have any choice at all for a good few years. Competing companies will be more interested in bulk mail contracts from medium to large businesses - they will collect the mail, dump it on Royal Mail's door step for sorting, and then collect it for delivery at the other end, paying Royal Mail a set rate for the processing.

So, [eventually] although you may be sending your christmas card through "Bob's Reet Good Mail Service", the processing will still be done by Royal Mail. Only the collection and delivery will be done by Bob himself.

Personally, I think it'll be a potentially irrecoverable mess. The Government should take back control of Royal Mail, and offer a decent non-profit making service - as they should the railways (the privatisation of which has done little more than create regional monopolies - a job well done, lads! Nice one!)... Christ, if the Indian government can offer a reliable, efficient mail service, I'm pretty sure little old Britain can manage it. But then, it's all about profit, eh? Sod the service, let's make more money...

I desperately need more money. I must make more money. The millions of pounds I already have just simply isn't enough to live comfortably. Take from the poor, give to the rich... Money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money...

Isn't capitalism fun?

Just my humble opinion, of course.

Originally posted by t020
A competitive environment also breeds efficiency.
Hmmm. Like bus deregulation?

If past experience is anything to go by (public transport forcing us to resort to taking the car) it'll be reliable to deliver the bl**dy letter yourself if this goes ahead.

The only reason mail prices can stay so low is the volume handled. A reduction in volume will escalate costs dramatically and that will be passed on to the customer. Another way to reduce costs is to stop the doorstep delivery. We'd have to collect our own mail from the post office, or pay a 'subscription' to have deliveries.

And don't let me start on the financial fiasco associated with the 'competition' on the railways

A competitive environment also breeds efficiency

If we are luck it might be nearly as good as the railways.
:confused:

Originally posted by t020
Competition means more choice for the consumer and competitive pricing could mean cheaper postage costs.

How on earth could it possibly be any cheaper???! 20-odd pence to have letters hand delivered to any door in Britain seems pretty outstanding value to me.

How do we get a choice, will there be several postboxes owned by different companies ?

Originally posted by Strix
Hmmm. Like bus deregulation?



There's a huge difference between the environments involved in transport and post. Privatisation of buses isn't practical because they all have to use the same roads and there's only so much space available, and if competition was too tough the result would be manic bus drivers racing to bus stops before rival companies.

With post however, assuming a fully blown privatised market ever happens, the situation would be one where companies would be entirely independent of each other - using their own collection boxes, postmen, post offices, sorting offices, vans, etc etc. There would be no shared resources involved. Like another post said though, for this to materialise could take several years yet.

Greenback - I agree post does offer good value for money in most situations, but a fully open, privatised market could throw in surprises (e.g. companies who charge less for local deliveries) as well as the fact that efficiency stats could be used as a comparison tool to determine which company offered the best service, and therefore value for money.

I can't see how you could run a private postal service, how many letters would need to be posted for the cost of them to cover a postmans wages for the week ?

The Royal Mail can't make any money now with millions of letters a day so what chance do a dozen smaller companies have unless they start charging the same prices as the likes of UPS ?

Yes, in theory there could be more of a sliding scale in how much it costs to send mail, but when it comes down to it it seems highly unlikely that any company would offer 92% next day delivery for less than 30p even just for local delivery.

Royal Mail subsidise post to remote locations and it is paid for by local post, which is obviously cheaper to deliver.

The new competitors to Royal Mail will cherry pick the easiest post to deliver, leaving Royal Mail to deliver the difficult stuff, and leaving them out of pocket - as they have a duty to sort all the mail, and deliver everything that the other companies don't want to.

It is a far more complicated issue that Public Bad, Private Good or vice versa.

Originally posted by Strix
Hmmm. Like bus deregulation?



Exactly. Despite some problems with old dirty buses (which is an issue concerned with quality controls not quantity controls) bus deregulation has been of benefit to passengers.

At the hight of competition waiting times for buses were much lower than now. Today's problems with buses are caused by too little competition (on most routes) not too much.

Originally posted by slimsid2000
Exactly. Despite some problems with old dirty buses (which is an issue concerned with quality controls not quantity controls) bus deregulation has been of benefit to passengers.


Not from a price point of view.

Originally posted by slimsid2000
Exactly. Despite some problems with old dirty buses (which is an issue concerned with quality controls not quantity controls) bus deregulation has been of benefit to passengers.

At the hight of competition waiting times for buses were much lower than now. Today's problems with buses are caused by too little competition (on most routes) not too much.

That was the argument used by the previous Tory government about almost everything.

If its not working, privatise it a little, if it still doesn't work, or is even worse, then privatise it some more.

Of course someone of the opposite persuasion would say the same in the opposite direction and always claim that you just need to be more ruthless in doing what you believe is right.

What is in fact needed is a more in depth look, free from political ideaology of any kind about what is most likely to be effective, however these decisions are always made by people with an axe to grind (ie politicians)

Originally posted by t020
Competition means more choice for the consumer and competitive pricing could mean cheaper postage costs.

Just how cheap do you want postage to be?

Under 30p to send a letter from Aberdeen to Abergavenny!! I think that will take some beating!

So yet another public service is being privatised. Just goes to show the government is determined to get extra money from anywhere these days. The question I have is where is all this extra money going?

Originally posted by t020
A competitive environment also breeds efficiency.
A competative environment generally does help efficiency, however, caution as ever may be required...

...for example, if the efficiency savings are 10%, but shareholders are paid 20%, there is a net loss to the consumer.

Open up competition in the postal service, yes sure, but let's learn from the industries already privatised.

Oh, and can we have the water industries back in public ownership now please.

My post might get to its destination on time.Royal mail have had enough time to sort them sens out but have dun nowt to improve things.

They should have the unemployed delivering letters.
That would be better than them walking the streets :suspect: