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[MSE Lawrence]

Poll between 01-08 June 2009:

Should the Royal Mail be part-privatised?

The government remains resolute in plans to sell off up to 49% of the Royal Mail to private bidders. This part-privatisation is a tricky business, with many arguments for and against...

FOR: The amount of letters we send each other has plummeted; personal correspondence now accounts for just 14% of snail-mail (thanks to email, texts, Facebook, Twitter and numerous others). The Royal Mail, though profitable, has a large pension fund deficit weighing it down. Part-privatisation could be a good solution for maintaining daily deliveries.

AGAINST: Private ownership may lead to thousands of redundancies, higher prices and less services. Standards could fall and our personal mail (which is less profitable) may be deprioritised. The Royal Mail dates back to 1516, so some see it as an important part of our heritage.

Should part-privatisation go ahead? Which of the following is nearest your answer?

A. No. The Royal Mail should always be a public service. 61% (4003 votes)
B. No. Privatisation will mean a more expensive/less efficient service. 11% (704 votes)
C. No. Privatisation will mean job losses and more Post Office closures. 10% (660 votes)
D. Yes. I don’t care whether the Royal Mail remains a public service. 2% (139 votes)
E. Yes. Market conditions mean the Royal Mail can’t survive while nationalised. 4% (249 votes)
F. Yes. Privatisation will lead to better service/more competition 9% (557 votes)
G. Don’t know/Not bothered either way. 3% (208 votes)

Total votes: 6520

Voting has now closed, but you can still click 'post reply' to discuss below. Thanks

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[Flickering Ember]

G. I don't know. I actually think a bit of C and a bit of F and am wondering about B.

[freshc]

It just makes me feel savage to think of all the homeland resources we have sold off. If other countries can muster someone or other to run our services and utilities then ARE WE NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO MANAGE OUR OWN? The Royal Mail should be the blueprint worldwide for a successful enterprise. We have the brains and the aptitude to make our mail services a success. Instead we are lead by successive governments that 'know better' and sell off all the best bits and leave us to struggle on with what's left. Give the Royal Mail back all the parcel and mail rights that have been given to the Germans and the Dutch and anyone else, RE-ORGANISE IT, GIVE IT EXPERT LEADERS AND LET'S RUN IT AS A PROUD AND PROFITABLE WORLD LEADING ENTERPRISE. If not we will be dictated to by Holland as to when and if we can collect our own mail, at a price!

[sane01]

You know I have had a discussion about this today on transport board as I was involved in a car accident with a Royal Mail van and nobody seemed to get me at all.

The short version is that the postie was going to fast although it will be 50/50 due to it being a single track road but my point is these sort of incidents will only increase the more goverment etc try to make it a more efficient service. My normal postie who is very careful has been told to get her foot down and get a move on - NO OVERTIME ALLOWED - she has told them she would rather not kill a child so she will remain slow and they do not have to pay her overtime.

The point I am trying to make is these people are on the road everyday in post buses, 4x4 everyday to make them stressed out and always rushing is just asking for trouble and it is morally wrong.

I am sure there are many more reasons people can think of to privatise not to privatise buy hey - SAVE A CHILD OR ADULTS LIFE - Lets not have stressed out posties behind the wheels of vans etc.

[peter_the_piper]

Can't for the life of me work out how the Government can say they are thinking of part privatisation because of the pensions problem, amongsrt other reasons, and then say they will take the pension into public ownership. If they can do this for the private sector why can't they do it anyway and leave the Royal Mail alone.

[rickbonar]

So far 57% say A
11% B
11% c

A significant no vote.

If Royal mail is privatised then will it follow in the footsteps of other privatisations?

Railways
BT
Gas
Electric
The Bus service

not to mention other services such as Banks already in the private sector.

In all of the services mentioned by me off the top of my head, ALL without fail have resulted in a stampede and raft of rip-offs, poor slow service, dirty tricks and miss selling and you're paying through the nose for the privelege.

Even the milkman service ... now there was a Thatcher success story !

Personally I'd like to see all these nationalised.

Can anyone actually tell us of a privatised service which is better??

[rickbonar]

Just a thought...

I wonder if the polititicians are getting royalties or other payment bungs off the privatised companies..... Now that would explain a great deal.

Breaking news the Old people homes ...rip offs (privatised services)

[teddyco]

This is just one more reason to GET LABOUR OUT!

[bunking_off]

I work in regulation in telecoms and struggle to see why a setup similar to that wouldn't work in the posal market..there's massive parallels between the two.

There are parts of the postal service which are natural monopolies. The delivery network springs to mind. These can be either left in the public sector, or put in the private sector and regulated heavily (price regulation to ensure efficiency). There are other parts which are competitive, so allowed more freedom/competition. There's no reason why these competitive bits should be in public hands.

In telecoms, Openreach own the telephone lines which are a natural monopoly, but the calls market is competitive. As it happens, Openreach is owned by BT, but that's an accident of history and most would say "we wouldn't have started from this situation".

Point is, BT is in private hands, but there's still universal service, and still harmonised pricing (don't get charged more to ring Scottish Islands than to call large cities). Competitive pressures ensure that, but if it didn't regulation could make it happen...e.g. Openreach's regulated pricing that communications providers (including BT) have to pay is set to ensure universal provision.

So why not have competitive provision of postal services, with a monopoly regulated or state-owned delivery network?

BT are in a bit of mess financially now, but compared to the bloated mess they were pre-privatisation, they're very efficient...think in terms of perhaps 70% reduction in staff. Some of that has been down to technology change, but not all of it. And if you don't like BT there's plenty of other choice. I believe the same could apply to the postal service...it's a labour intensive activity (particularly the delivery network) so the efficiency savings that BT achieved couldn't be done, but there's some horrendous spanish practises go on (my old boss used to work over there and some of his tales would make your hair curl). It's just regretable that the companies that seem up to the job of rationalising the business all seem to be foreign.

[mcgazz]

B *and* C, and I suppose A. Anything which has a natural monopoly (and we only need one network or Post Offices, postboxes, etc) works better in public ownership. It's not ideology, it's logic.

[JamPot]

The major problem with Royal Mail is one of modernisation. Look at any commercial-run mailing facility (DHL, Deutsche Post) and the sorting of mail which can be mechanised almost totally is being run by handful of staff. This is not a labour intensive operation, but at the RM it is.

Management had the opportunities back in the 1960s with the mechanisation of mail sorting using postcodes to bring in this type of operation over time but failed to do so - poor management and leadership has lead us to the position today that RM barely can keep its head consistently above water.

If the Unions want to keep members in work they need to focus on the one part of the service the machine cannot do - delivery. Here they could use more staff I am sure.

Of course the major problem for the RM is what business is it in - they think its delivering letters. In truth they are in the communications business and their strategic plans should have addressed this years ago...

It may still be too late.

[mcgazz]

"RM barely can keep its head consistently above water."

Not true: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8049808.stm

And this is despite RM provided one of the cheapest postal services in Europe.

From: http://clients.squareeye.com/uploads...ASENOTMADE.pdf
"The overall cost of the UK domestic postal service as a percentage of GDP compares favourably when compared with the Netherlands and particularly with Germany. It delivers 50% more mail per capita than Germany for 10% less GDP and provides a more extensive collection network. The Netherlands is slightly cheaper than the UK but that is to be expected because its population density and size should make it inherently less costly to serve."

[Mazzie]

I have lived in many Countries in the world and I can say that the UK definitely has one of the best postal systems anywhere at this moment in time. If it is privatised it may go the same way as many other Countries......down the tubes.

Two weeks ago I left New Zealand where I lived for the last year. Their mail service is not great, but not too bad compared to other Countries, it's not as good as the UK though. They have a two tier mail system, regular post and fast post. Fast post costs 50% more, but gets it there within 2 days. Regular mail takes a few more days.

I currently live in Canada and the mail system here sucks big time. I have spent more than 20 years living in Canada and the service here seems to get worse each year, more expensive and less efficient. A letter that has to come only 10 kilometers takes a week to get here if you're lucky. There is only one mail delivery a day, Monday to Friday and you don't get it through your letterbox, it gets delivered to what they call a superbox, located down the road which can be treacherous getting to when the snow is 3 feet deep. We also have to pay tax on stamps, so a 54 cent stamp actually costs 57 cents. I would say that Canada has definitely the WORST mail system in the world. If I were to mail a Birthday Card to my sister in the UK, the stamp costs almost twice as much as the card does to buy.

In the USA, I found their mail system to be quite efficient. I have heard Americans moan about it, but I never had any problems with it. I found it to be quick and efficient and they even deliver mail on Christmas Day, no tax on stamps either.

In today's day and age more and more people are opting to receive bills and bank statements on line, which is much more efficient, instantaneous and cost effective for the consumer, not to mention better for the environment. In the future probably all mail will be received this way and postal services will just get more and more expensive and less and less efficient.

For those of you who live in the UK, be thankful that you don't have a postal service like Canada and keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't change.

[yorkshireman99]

Originally Posted by teddyco

This is just one more reason to GET LABOUR OUT!

But the Toties are just as much (or even more) in favour of this move. My tory MP (who is on the front bench) wrote and told me so.

[scatz]

I work as a postie and am obviously against the privatisation! It'll mean a less effecient service but with a higher price tag for the customer!!!!!!

It's already becoming a less effecient service due to Royal Mail trying to save money left right and centre. Someone mentioned earlier that RM will not pay overtime, partly true.....they will not pay overtime if you continue to deliver after your shift ends, if you have any deliveries left you are expected to 'cut off' which means advising management that you will not finish your delivery and to request the remaining mail be conveyed back to the office....where it sits until the next day, snowball effect anyone???

Labour I believe are saying they will sell part of RM to keep it cheaper and efficient other parties are wanting to sell the whole lot!!!!

When RM's monopoly was ended they were and still are embargoed from price hikes which means the competition are cherry picking all the lucrative business and leaving RM with the 'crud'. I mean, can you ever see private firms delivering to addresses that are on there own miles from anywhere....no, RM do, always have done and will continue to do so.

I used to be proud to work for RM but lately am changing my mind, even as far as looking for other employ....it's going to the dogs I tell thee

To top it off, RM received huge profits last year yet tell it's employee's they are unable to give us a payrise even though they are putting more and more work on us and expecting us to do it in the same time........all due to them trying to save more money to stave of the competition.

Take it from one that works for them, your service is falling down the pan already...later deliveries anyone????? Wait for it to be privatised and then see how bad it'll be.....rant over

[deputydawg1]

i work for royal mail and would like to clarify a few points raised by other viewers.
one royal mail spent a small fortune on a computer based driving assesment for all its drivers to ensure they were staying within the law to drive safely and not bash the vans so much. all the vans have tracking devices in them and show the speed and any erratic manourvers such as harsh braking and they are restricted to 70mph or 56mph in the case of 7.5 tonnes and above.
royal mail does the majority of its mail using machines but we have to deal with a lot of small packages which can only be dealt with by hand. dhl etc do use machines for their mail but only deal in items that have one or two pieces of paper in them such as bank statements.
because of postcomms rules of engagment dhl tnt etc can process their mail themselves but then royal muggins actual delivery which if they had to do themselves would not give a universal service.
if the royal mail is privatised then various parts of the service would be subbed out to other firms and other firms just look at how many firms not to mention the share holders want their share of money from a train ticket for example. i could go on..........

[A fiend for life]

I think A, B and C are correct.

Privatising the Post Office will result in closures, less efficiency, higher cost of sending letters and job losses.

We will end up with a system focussed on shareholder gains rather than providing a fundamental service.

We will only end up with something as disasterous as rail transport with two or three layers of companies and shareholders to boot in my view. Or even the directory enquiries mess.

[A fiend for life]

Combined votes for A, B and C gives 80% saying 'No' so far this compares quite well with the CWU's figure of 90% and Lord Mandelson is still trying to scupper things.

Fair enough there is a pension problem across the public sector but privatising is not the answer.

[Magic Mel]

Should Royal Mail be privatised?
What do you think will happen when companies buy parts of RMG.
e.g Letters. Currently Royal Mail delivers to every household.
Rural areas included although those living in the "sticks" are far out, they still get a daily delivery. This could cease if a private company takes over as it will be considered non profitable part of the service. So all those living outside the city can have a PO Box to collect their mail from instead of having it delivered!

Not received a letter who has got it?? Royal Mail, DHL, TNT, Securicor,
you can play hunt the letter, it will end up like British Rail, lots of people playing, but nobody knowing what the heck is going on.

[bunking_off]

Mel, so if that's the case with privatised utilities, how do you explain that homes in rural communities still have a phone line? These are unprofitable for BT/Openreach, but a condition of their approval to operate is that they maintain universal service. Would be no different for a privatised RM.

I remain to be convinced either way about whether privatisation of RM is a good thing, but the stories put about that it would mean an end to universal service are just plain wrong.