A fair deal on Royal Mail privatisation

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/waste/ ... ation.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


************* Remember the Tax Payers Alliance is to the Right of the Cons *********************************************

After two false starts under previous governments, the Coalition is planning to privatise the Royal Mail. This time the sale is slated to take place in 2012.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance strongly supports the privatisation in principle. We believe the mail will operate more efficiently in private hands, just as it already does in a number of other European countries including Holland and Germany. And with the demand for traditional mail services under severe pressure from the growth of email, efficiency is now a matter of survival.

But for taxpayers there are vital questions over implementation. How can we be sure the government will achieve a good price? The last major privatisation was the bungled sale of QinetiQ, which was seriously underpriced, costing taxpayers tens – possibly hundreds – of millions. And even if the government does get a good price, will it be at the expense of the public being ripped-off in future by yet another privatised monopoly?

Because the price the government achieves will depend critically on the regulatory rules under which the privatised company will have to operate. The more onerous the rules, the lower the price any buyer will be prepared to pay.

What we know already is that the government will not require the buyer to take over the Post Office’s huge pension deficit, most recently estimated at £10.3bn – that will remain hung firmly round taxpayers’ necks. The costly and problematic post office network will also remain in public ownership. Prospective buyers will therefore be bidding solely for the Royal Mail as a standalone business, unencumbered by past pension liabilities, which ought to be much more compelling proposition.

But what we actually get for it remains highly uncertain. A price of £4bn is widely quoted, but according to one recently published estimate it could be anywhere between £0.7bn and £5.7bn. It depends crucially on the regulatory regime.

Which is why the government must specify the regulations before inviting bids. It must avoid the problem encountered with QinetiQ, where lack of clarity over contractual arrangements at the outset allowed the preferred bidder later to renegotiate the price down.

It must also ensure that there is a real competitive bidding process, something which was again missing in the QinetiQ privatisation. Given the pressing need to get new management expertise and capital into the Royal Mail, a trade sale to a competitor (such as TNT or Deutsche Post) is more likely than a floatation on the stock market. But that means competitive bidding will be crucial if taxpayers are to get a good deal.

The government is under great pressure to get on with this privatisation. Not only does it need the cash to bolster its fiscal position, but plummeting demand for letter mail services means things cannot continue as is. Difficult operational decisions are needed urgently and the government lacks the expertise and ability to make them.

But that cannot be an excuse for another giveaway. Whitehall has been studying Royal Mail privatisation for years and should be fully aware of its value. This time taxpayers expect to get a fair deal.

[fishtank]

So many flaws and mistakes..i wouldn't know where to start.
If it wasn't for the link i would think it was some school politics project gone wrong?
If it was i would give it an F.

[POSTMAN]

Shame,they're normally pretty good.
w*****s now.

[barbario]

For a start, Holland has one of the worlds worst postal systems. What is this idiot talking about.

[Spedley]

I still can't see why RM would be better in private hands. If a private company could run it and make loads of money then surely the government could hire the people themselves and make loads of money?

[feduppostie]

so it's ok as long as they get the right price - tossers

[feduppostie]

and just to add I am a TAXPAYER too!

I don't want a good price i want a mail service to be proud of

here i'll save em a few quid

get rid of all the pencil pushers, have one manager an office, team leaders in the bigger offices, put us back to delivering when people are actually at home and listen to the people that do this job everyday

there ya go problem solved and millions saved

[borders]

this is an article from the Daily Mail [ dated 5 Feb 2011] and if there is any truth in it then the people who wrote the article above are deluded !!!!!



'The planned privatisation is an unnecessary ideological move which will damage postal services for ever,' said Billy Hayes, leader of the Communication Workers Union.
While Hayes believes the sell-off of Royal Mail - in State hands since its inception in 1516 - would mean an increase in prices, a decrease in services and mass Post Office closures, Business Secretary Vince Cable claims the move will 'secure the services that consumers and businesses rely on'.
Opposing: Billy Hayes, of the Communication Workers Union, says the plans are 'an unnecessary ideological move', while Vince Cable (right) claims privatisation will 'secure the services that consumers and businesses rely on'
Of course, they can't both be right. To find out what a privatised postal service really would be like, we only have to look across the North Sea to the Netherlands. And Holland's unhappy experience should give us all grounds for concern over what is about to happen in Britain.
Holland was the world's postal privatisation trailblazer, transforming its state-owned postal service to a private corporation in 1989. Five years later, the Dutch state sold 30 per cent of its shares in PTT Netherlands, and a year later sold another 25 per cent, thereby losing its majority holding.
Since then, the Dutch have had to get used to several name changes to their postal service. In 1994 it became known as Royal PTT Post and in 2002 it was renamed Royal TPG Post. Today it is called Royal TNT Post, after the multinational company that operates the service.

More...Families face tidal wave of junk mail as Royal Mail seeks five-fold boost in earnings

If the Royal Mail is privatised, it is likely that similar name changes will follow here too. Although the Government promises that the Queen's head will remain on stamps, there is no guarantee that the name Royal Mail will stay. Neither is there any guarantee that our post boxes will remain red - in Holland in 2006 they changed from red to orange.
Privatisation in Holland has also led to the closure of around 90 per cent of the country's post offices, including the magnificent 19th Century main post office in Amsterdam, which is now a shopping mall. In the space of just one month in 2009, ten per cent of all Holland's post offices closed.

Change?: After any privatisation, there is no guarantee that our post boxes will stay red - in Holland they went from red to orange
There have been other cuts too. Dutch post boxes are emptied only once a day, unlike in Britain where there are sometimes three collections a day.
Complaints about the reliability of Holland's privatised post are widespread.

'We all wait a lot longer for our parcels to arrive these days,' complains Peter Suurland, from Amsterdam.

In the past three months, four packages sent from the UK have never arrived - one containing birthday money for my nine-year-old. I'm still awaiting two more packages sent more than two weeks ago. Not a week goes by when I don't get someone else's post.'
TNT has acknowledged the problems.

'As a company we are not in a position to deliver the post on time, particularly on Saturday and Monday,' TNT said in a letter to workers in The Hague region.
Holland was not only the first EU state to privatise its postal service. It was also one of the first to adopt EU directives and allow new companies to compete in its postal market.

The move was supposed to increase competition and lead to better services.
But the opposite has occurred. New firms paying workers below the minimum wage have hit deep into the profits of TNT.
In response, TNT now wants to replace 11,000 workers who work more than 25 hours a week with cheaper part-time workers and franchisees.
Unsurprisingly, staff, who have already seen big wage cuts in recent years, are incensed, and two weeks before Christmas they went on strike.
'I'm 57 years old. Our company has an ageing workforce. These older workers won't stand a chance in the labour market, and there is no alternative,' Gerard van Os, a postman for 37 years, told Radio Netherlands.
Holland's postal problems have become front-page news across the country. But as bad as things are today, they could be about to get even worse.
Warning: Christine Farnish, Chair of Consumer Focus, which has warned if the sale goes ahead, more than a third of Post Offices will close
TNT says it wants to cut deliveries to just three days a week. 'If politicians want six days a week, then they will have to finance it,' declared Peter Kuinz, TNT's managing director.

He also said that the Universal Service Obligation - which ensures that mail is delivered to every address for the same price - was a 'kind of Jurassic Park and we should get rid of it'.
The alarming deterioration in postal services in Holland could soon be coming to Britain. And although the Royal Mail is not presently up for sale, the official customer watchdog Consumer Focus warned recently that if the sale does go ahead, more than a third of our Post Offices will close, due to the loss of the Royal Mail's £343million a year subsidy.
The Government claims privatisation offers the Royal Mail the promise of a 'brighter future'.

But if the experience of our North Sea neighbour is anything to go by, it is likely to deliver nothing but chaos.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1GBjjj3n1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[borders]

just emailed the said article to them , hopefully they will take note

[Big Daz]

Whatever moderate amount of time saved on prep by real or perceive drop in letter volumes is wiped out by increased attendance calls. I would say when pegasus is next run at my D.O we will need it to have 3.4% attendance call rate. 2008 pegasus revision used 1.7% as call rate. My ex delivery duty has doubled in attendance calls since then.

[fishtank]

I would say when pegasus is next run at my D.O we will need it to have 3.4% attendance call rate. 2008 pegasus revision used 1.7% as call rate.

Pegasus/georoute now gives an attendance call rate of approx 17 per 500 calls which is....3.4%.
I would say it is still too low doing tracked and specials.

[BELIAL]

just emailed the said article to them , hopefully they will take note

They wont as well you know, and anybody who thought the "taxpayers alliance" weren't stormtroopers is daft as a brush,seig heil

[Spedley]

I would say when pegasus is next run at my D.O we will need it to have 3.4% attendance call rate. 2008 pegasus revision used 1.7% as call rate.

Pegasus/georoute now gives an attendance call rate of approx 17 per 500 calls which is....3.4%.
I would say it is still too low doing tracked and specials.

I'd say it is about right for oversize parcels with park and loop in shared vans (I had 21 today for 900 drops - 5 of them specials). We also have about 3 'door knocks' per pouch and usually 12 pouches).
If you only count the oversize (shoebox or larger + all specials) then that would be 2.3%
If you count everything (which you should) then that would be total bollocks at 6.3%

[Big Daz]

3.4 would be ok on the current set up but not with shared vans where you have all the oversized and trackeds.

I shall have to remember that as and when RML get around to doing a methods revision at my D.O

I take my hat off to you Mr Fishtank