http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11258649

"Meh".

You can get real, active competition in the postal market. The same can't be said of the railway network or for water, so I'd like to see both either re-nationalised or set up as not-for-profit companies.

Of course the clincher for Royal Mail will be if it is still lumped with its USO, because if it is (and other companies are not subject to it) then I can't see Royal Mail competing very well with other mail providers. Oh, and of course if Royal Mail is privatised then the "final mile" should be scrapped too, allowing any postal companies to deliver to the door.

I think that it will be a disaster. Though that never stopped politicians privatising an essential industry. The government have been inept for decades with the Royal Mail and the Post Office. The post unions have contributed to its demise but being inflexible. Even having private managers in will make little difference until the post office has been so decimated that the service is useless.

Well you give any union a monopoly and they're going to hold an enormous amount of power. I can't honestly think of any reason, other than perhaps standardised pricing, for keeping the Royal Mail as it is - complete with monopoly over domestic mail. Mail delivery can and should be privatised, the potential benefits are enormous (for those of us on the British mainland anyway).

Have we got any services left in this country?
And I do mean 'service', not business.

Yes but I also think about those in Northern Ireland and the highlands and islands who will find the service becoming prohibitive. Then just think what will happen to the postal vote in those areas? The USO should be maintained. Even with the pension liabilities socialised and the possible profits privatised the government will be giving away billions of state assets on the cheap again.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how that would be the case as a consumer of services. I get my post delivered under the PO. I will (hopefully) get it delivered under a private company. As a customer, the service will not have significantly improved and they will find it hard to find ways to make it improve. All that will change is the cost; as either the debts of the PO will be hived off before sale and will increase the public deficit, leading to even higher taxes or public spending cuts, or will be passed over to the business in which case they will charge more. The only benefits will be to the various consultancy firms who handle the privatisation thereby charging humungous fees and the shareholders who will get any available profit rather than it being passed back to the exchequer.

I'm struggling to actually figure out any way at all that the a privatised PO would benefit me, either as a receiver or sender of post. All I can see happening is the price of post going up and the amount of junk mail multiplying exponentially as the privatised company goes for easy profit.

There are certain services within society that really should be operated for the benefit of the consumer not the shareholder. By definition privatised companies cannot properly fulfill that remit. I'm not against private enterprise or the profit motive, but assuming it's the panacea to any business's problems is simply not what recent history has told us.

So, simple question - what are the 'enormous potential benefits' a post office/royal mail privatisation will bring to the majority of people in the UK?

Jon

Let me see:

- Cheaper posting, pricing by distance etc
- Less "lost"/stolen mail
- A choice of providers, all competing on price, service, coverage etc
- Other improvements that used to form part of the Royal Mail's services - e.g. multiple collections & deliveries (anyone remember getting several deliveries a day? I do), delivery earlier in the day, which have since been dropped.

I can only see a disadvantage for those who live on the islands (Scilly, Channel etc) and those who live in very remote areas.

Er... by what basis do you assume this will be the case? Name me one previously government owned service which has got cheaper since privatisation. Trains - nope; utilities - nope... You're replacing a public utilty which has essentially no remit to make a profit with a private organisation whose only remit is to make a profit. By what logic would that by definition lead to cheaper prices?


There's no indication that they will bother with that but let's take it as read they do. Local post becomes cheaper, national post becomes more expensive (I assume you want to do it this way, if it's the reverse please correct me). Fine. How many local as oppose to national items do you regularly post? Most things I post are either gifts to people who are too far away for me to travel to, or items/paperwork I am returning to companies whose head offices could be anywhere in the UK, but statistically are unlikely to be local to me. So, sounds like to me I'd end up paying more, doesn't it? If stuff was 'local' I wouldn't bother posting it at all, I'd just do the delivery myself.


Lost/stolen item rates have increased significantly since the Royal Mail started employing casual sorting & delivery staff to reduce costs. if you pay less you get less dedicated staff which means more theft and less assiduous work. I can't see any future provider suddenly deciding to employ more expensive staff thus reducing mail delivery failures. That would eat into the profit margin. Staff costs are generally one of the larger components of any business, which is why staffing levels is the first thing to get cut when overheads need to be reduced.


We have that already - there are any number of delivery/courier firms you could use if you wish. Strangely, they all charge more than the royal mail for personal deliveries.


All of those extras were cut because the Royal Mail was making drastic efforts to reduce costs, to try and keep their operation in the black. Are you honestly suggesting that a private company would reinstate those services, massively increasing it's cost base and therefore reducing it's profit? That would be utterly unprecedented. And also, I suspect, rather short-lived.

You seem to be suggesting a private company would take over the Royal Mail's duties, massively increase the cost base, introduce a pricing system which would increase revenue but would also cost them more to administer and discourage customers, improve pay and conditions for workers and yet still make a profit on a business which is currently losing money.

The only way royal mail can make a profit is as follows

a) Reduce costs - best way to do this is to divest themselves of the enormous millstone that is the company pension scheme which you and I will end up paying for in higher taxes and cut staffing costs. Undoubtedly the Royal Mail unions have kept costs high over time -as I said staff costs are a big part of the Royal Mails outgoings - and a more efficient management team will do that but given the Royal Mail has had 'private industry management' - Hello Adam Crozier - for years, who have all pocketed massive paychecks (Crozier was on £3.5m a year) without changing that situation a jot and in the process overseen a deteriorating service to the customer (as you yourself point out) I'm rather sceptical that just changing the deckchairs will save the Royal Mail liner.

b) Increase revenue - hello higher prices and more bulk mail!

Privatising the royal mail will solve non of it's problems. It will solve a government problem , because the government will no longer have to pay for it. The fact that both recent administrations have been trying to privatise it is an indication that it's a cost government does not want to bear. However that also suggests it's a business they can't see making a profit any time soon - if it did, they'd want to keep it. Privatisation is not in the interest of the customer, it's in the interests of the government and those that administer the privatisation.

It depends, if for example you're posting locally I would expect that to be cheaper than posting it nationally. I would also expect competition to force prices downwards. As for your examples - both rail and water are natural monopolies. As I've stated elsewhere, rail and water should be nationalised (or run as not-for-profit) - there's just no way for companies to directly compete with each other. Electricity, telephone etc can be directly competitive however, and there's evidence that prices have gone downwards as companies compete for telephone/broadband customers etc.



There will no doubt be some companies (esp. Royal Mail if it keeps the USO) who maintain a national pricing model, the advantage will be that you get to choose which model suits you.



I was thinking more of random RFID tagging of mail etc to prevent theft/fraud.



Not for domestic letters there isn't. I can only send parcels via courier, not letters.

Do you believe politicians in the week before elections too?


They will compete on price alone. If you can't get delivery to your area, please call their premium rate number and spend your week pointlessly pressing buttons on their automated answer "service."

They may well endeavour to avoid being the worst of the bunch with regards to service, as with all private companies, but as the service level will be uniformly [LIFTED] from them all, this won't help consumers. See the privatisation of rail for details:

[Lies] The rail companies will invest "billions" in the expansion of the rail system in order to compete by providing the best service [/Lies] [Truth] They worked amongst each other to run the existing infrastructure, which they bought too cheaply in the first place, into the ground whilst making it last as long as possible. The money went into pockets. Then when it began to fall apart they went back to the government asking for money to help improve the rail system.

Yes but will RFID make it cheaper? No. The overall cost to the tax payer will be higher. They get the pension liabilities dumped on them, plus higher postal charges. So tax payers will not benefit. Also who would buy a business that has struggled to make a profit since the treasury increased its demands on the business.

I'm not really talking about Royal Mail. The whole domestic mail business needs to be opened up to competition, and I'd like to see start-up companies/existing mail companies entering the fray.

BTW does anyone fly BA any more? If not, why not?

Competition may not make it any better. There are certain natural monopolies because to have a true competitor that provides full universal service would be so incredibly expensive. The only way to control it is to regulate it. Though governments have failed badly to regulate banks so what hope is there for the post office and all the delivery services. The whole concept of a free market and competition is a con. If it is a full free market it will be the customers who pay dearly.

I don't consider mail to be such a monopoly. Something like rail or water where there is only one set of infrastructure yes, but any mail company can use the roads, set up sorting centres etc. Hence my earlier comments - make all natural monopolies (rail, water etc) not-for-profit, everything else can easily be privatised.