RMCtv : Reforming the Universal Service - an update on Royal Mail's request

[guardianangel]

Love this we being doing a 3 day service all year now .Never understood why they never offer more 3 day weeks and 2 day week for working parents ,i know loads of working mothers and fathers who would work 2 or 3 days,most service industries work this way and never have a problem recruiting. Anyway we know this is the reason royal mail are running it down to get their own way and its coming and with the amount of people leaving they wont even have to make redundancies.

[Mr Rush]

When did mandatory driving come in for newbies in DOs?

It would be in the run-up to P&L being rolled out from 2010. I don't recall any non-drivers starting after 2008, bar one with mitigating circumstances.

[citypostie]

The whisper is they hope to have a temporary change to the uso by October. Monday to Friday letters or they reckon they are going bust

[SpacePhoenix]

When did mandatory driving come in for newbies in DOs?

It would be in the run-up to P&L being rolled out from 2010. I don't recall any non-drivers starting after 2008, bar one with mitigating circumstances.

I wonder what the current % is of staff who joined RM before 2008

[citypostie]

When did mandatory driving come in for newbies in DOs?

It would be in the run-up to P&L being rolled out from 2010. I don't recall any non-drivers starting after 2008, bar one with mitigating circumstances.

I wonder what the current % is of staff who joined RM before 2008

In my office I'd say at least 70% most have got 20+ years in. Mine is a relatively small office though, about 80 staff

[Mr Rush]

Mine is a relatively small office though, about 80 staff

That's small? We're down to 84 now (I think, hard to keep up with the departures) which I thought was still quite large. Ten years ago we had 135 and IPS stretched as far as the eye could see

[thefox]

The whisper is they hope to have a temporary change to the uso by October. Monday to Friday letters or they reckon they are going bust

Ha ha rolling put the old we are going bust line again

[datasaint]

The whisper is they hope to have a temporary change to the uso by October. Monday to Friday letters or they reckon they are going bust

Ha ha rolling put the old we are going bust line again

Doesn't really hold water does it.

The share price is higher now than it was last year and yet the company is failing, doubtful.

[Woody Guthrie]

The whisper is they hope to have a temporary change to the uso by October. Monday to Friday letters or they reckon they are going bust

Ha ha rolling put the old we are going bust line again

Doesn't really hold water does it.

The share price is higher now than it was last year and yet the company is failing, doubtful.

The share price represents the value of IDS, not Royal Mail. That's why they separated it.

Companies within a group can go bust without the entire group going under.

Royal Mail could go into individual insolvency. If the value of the assets left were high enough the IDS share price would probably go up without such a loss making subsidiary.

You can't read anything into the share price.

[crazyshrew]

When did mandatory driving come in for newbies in DOs?

It would be in the run-up to P&L being rolled out from 2010. I don't recall any non-drivers starting after 2008, bar one with mitigating circumstances.

I started in 2011 without a driving license as "Postperson with cycling"

I'm very aware, not least due to my manager's frequent threatening reminders, that my future in RM is likely not a long one.

[Mr Rush]

When did mandatory driving come in for newbies in DOs?

It would be in the run-up to P&L being rolled out from 2010. I don't recall any non-drivers starting after 2008, bar one with mitigating circumstances.

I started in 2011 without a driving license as "Postperson with cycling"

I'm very aware, not least due to my manager's frequent threatening reminders, that my future in RM is likely not a long one.

That seems to imply the required-driving contracts were only being issued for specific offices with P&L already in place as it was rolled-out rather than being introduced nationally from a single date.

[postslippete]

Royal Mail will never completely "own" parcels because there are far too many other couriers doing it. Royal Mail are trying to compete with global giants like Amazon that generated $513 billion in revenue last year and has a $1 trillion market cap whilst Evri invested £60 million last year on a new automated parcel distribution hub in Barnsley to process over a million parcels a day.

Royal Mail's unique selling point is that they are the only courier that delivers letters and it's not as if they don't generate much revenue from it. They have ramped up the price of postage and made all the duties bigger via revisions. Whilst that might help offset the overall decline in letters, Royal Mail are only looking to further reduce headcounts, and with a day off the USO, that will allow them to make even bigger profits because they are not likely to put resources in to ensure that mail is being delivered on a daily basis, even if it is on fewer days. They have previously blamed covid, strikes, sickness and everything else as to why post isn't being delivered, so why would they change their habits of a lifetime going forward?

All Royal Mail are interested in is managing the decline in letters. Fewer delivery days will obviously mean less posties, so I question why Dave Ward believes that it is a good idea for us to have a 5 day USO. Surely, it would be used as a huge bargaining chip for any deal in 2025 because fewer staff obviously means that they have to do more work!?

[BenacreNick]

Crazy Shrewsbury, tell your manager to naff off, if your are still being threatened.

[postslippete]

The share price represents the value of IDS, not Royal Mail. That's why they separated it.

Companies within a group can go bust without the entire group going under.

Royal Mail could go into individual insolvency. If the value of the assets left were high enough the IDS share price would probably go up without such a loss making subsidiary.

You can't read anything into the share price.

Woody's right. There was a strong suspicion at the time that by renaming the company IDS that the board were positioning to spin off one of the businesses. IDS is just a holding company so if one of the other companies go bankrupt then the creditors cannot legally pursue the holding company for remuneration. It also creates problems when reading the true financials of each company because its possible to hide GLS's losses by moving their debts, for example, over to us.

There are wider issues that prevent Royal Mail going into administration though, particularly as they need consent from the government/courts under the Postal Services Act and it would only do that if the company is unable to pay off its debts. Considering that the government keeps knocking RM back for a 5 day USO, wouldn't they allow them to do so if it prevented them from going insolvent??

Either way, splitting Royal Mail from our sister business would not be good because the money that Royal Mail will lose if it doesn't adapt to its new reality is far greater than anything that GLS can ever earn. That is why there is a lot riding on making these changes work in Royal Mail first and foremost. I'm optimistic that we will make record profits once our 20% share in success has expired

[crazyshrew]

Crazy Shrewsbury, tell your manager to naff off, if your are still being threatened.

I'm going back and forth with what I want to do about him. He's one of those silly billy's that knows a very little and understands even less. Just a puppet and mouthpiece for those above.
I have a list as long as that of people who wanted to take redundancy earlier in the year of his behaviours that are out of order, my only difficulty is that he picks his moments carefully so I have no witnesses if I wanted to pursue any sort of complaint.
I'm not too bothered. He is a very stupid individual and I'm at my smartest when when I'm bitter and full of spite.