THE Royal Mail is set for a huge change with the Saturday post set to be scrapped under bombshell plans.
The abolition of the Saturday post is just one of many changes being considered as part of a shake-up of The Royal Mail.
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A service agreement that stipulates deliveries on six days could be scrapped. The price of stamps could go up too.
The regulator is set to publish a document on Wednesday which will look at a raft of far reaching changes to Royal Mail, reports Sky News.
Industry sources believe is likely to include reforms such as modifying first-and second-class delivery targets and higher stamp prices.
Royal Mail was privatised by the coalition government in 2013. Over recent years it has been rocked by a wave of industrial disputes.
MPs recently criticised the company’s performance.
In November it was fined £5.6m by Ofcom for failing to meet first- and second-class delivery targets during the 2022-23 financial year.
In a letter to MPs this week, Martin Seidenberg, chief executive of Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distributions Services (IDS), wrote: “Delivering the current Universal Service requirements – in a financially sustainable way – is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to achieve as the mix and number of parcels and letters changes.
“The bar set by the regulations is unrealistic given the market realities.”
He said there were several ways to address the challenge facing Royal Mail, “including significantly increasing prices, seeking a government subsidy, and/or reforming the Universal Service so that it is more reflective of the customer needs and market realities of today, not the needs of the past”.
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“Whilst we welcome the forthcoming Ofcom review of the Universal Service, the inertia we have experienced means that we are now facing a far more serious situation than we would have been if action had been taken sooner,” Mr Seidenberg wrote.
“Every day that Ofcom and the Government further delay reform just creates more risk for the long-term sustainability of the Universal Service, and indeed Royal Mail itself.
“We must maximise every pound spent to transform our business for the future and deliver more for our customers – not continue to sustain a service standard that was designed in a pre-internet era and no longer reflects customer needs.”
