2 in 5

[Rumple]

I miss Terry Pullinger.

[roman]

They should have made the job Monday to Friday with Saturdays optional 15 to 20 years ago.Royal Mail were toying with it but because of the u s o agreement it got thrown out. The union didn’t want it because jobs could have been at risk. It would have save the company a packet. No shift patterns to cover, everyone on the same hours. Volunteers could have done the specials and 24 hour tracked with a skeleton staff.

[TopperGas]

What do we need a third of the staff to cover IPS and deliveries on a Saturday are RM really going to get that many volunteers, if not, what happens then?

[Perseus]

What do we need a third of the staff to cover IPS and deliveries on a Saturday are RM really going to get that many volunteers, if not, what happens then?

Royal Mail will NEVER staff a USO day (which Saturday still is) with volunteers, no matter how much people want it to happen. It's tantamount to risking breaking the law. It's a suggestion that often pops up and it's often, yet not always, from people who would be quite happy for other staff apart from them to do Saturdays. So that gets us to the 2 in 5 or 1 in 2 Saturdays off situation. That ratio lets you know how many staff you need in for a model office - somewhere around 50% of current staffing levels, with the expectation that 1 person in 1 van will deliver the tracked and 1C over 2 duties. That is all fair and well if say you have an office with 20 shared vans and maybe 8 singleton vans that cover semi rural areas and everybody drives for RM. 48 duties total. There must be (maybe?) lots of offices like this set up.

For a Saturday doing 1C letters and tracked in this model office.
You need 20 people in doing the shared vans (1 person doing both sides) and 4 others doing the 8 semi rurals/singletons, so a staff of 24 required. So yeah, very loosely you'd get every second Saturday off, but more likely 2/5 as it's a bit tight, although this is one of the options of attendance in the appendix, as long as everyone drives. The reason I say it's a bit tight, is that you'd be very lucky to have every single duty in an office able to simply do both sides of a frame/second singleton duty with 1C and tracked, there are always outliers.
The clear issues with this system is many staff are entitled to not drive for RM, and also many singleton duties (deeper rurals) simply can't do 2 rurals worth of tracked and 1C as one on it's own would take them about 75% of the time a Mon-Fri delivery would due to the travelling involved.
Let's use the same amount of duties again, but not everyone drives and some of the rurals are deep rurals meaning they can't 'double up' on a Saturday.
20 shared vans, needing 40 staff Mon-Fri. 30 of the staff drive, 10 don't. 8 singleton/rurals, 6 of them 'deep'.
Come Saturday you again need 24 people in to cover the workload, however 5 don't drive (as they are entitled not to) and you actually need 3 more people in to do the deep rurals as they can't double up - so you've gone from 24 needed to 5 more driving staff and 3 more rural staff - total 32. That's 3/4 of your office in on a Saturday - not quite the 2/5.
I've heard that HCT duties will be going out on Saturdays by van, but who knows?

[TopperGas]

If HTC duties still go out on a Saturday then that's going to be a lot of dead walking assuming they are only going to deliver packets and 1c? Plus it hardly deals with the fatigue issue caused by the ODM model?

[Perseus]

If HTC duties still go out on a Saturday then that's going to be a lot of dead walking assuming they are only going to deliver packets and 1c? Plus it hardly deals with the fatigue issue caused by the ODM model?

If HCT's go out they will be expected to do 2 duties worth of 1C and tracked, but no mention of who does the over sized tracked that won't fit in the HCT. Anything else and the 'more Saturdays off' falls apart really quickly.
Many offices will have HCT's that fan out in all directions, so not possible to do 2 per person.
Martin Walsh stated the other day that non driving staff will be able to be part of a 2 man team in a van on Saturdays, but no mention of what the workload will be. 2 people doing 4 walks worth? Impossible.