Letters For The Rich, Letters For The Poor? The Future Of Royal Mail

24th January 2024

Royal Mail is losing money. In the first half of this financial year, the company lost £319m, up from £219m the previous year. It is not hard to see how: its business is shrinking, a series of strikes convulsed its workforce from May 2022 to July 2023, it was hit by a huge ransomware cyber attack a year ago, it was fined £5.6m by Ofcom last November for missed delivery targets and in the same month it lost its monopoly on parcels at Post Office branches.

Under those circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Royal Mail's management wants to make changes. It has been agitating for changes since 2020, and currently is proposing to stop delivering post on Saturdays, moving to Monday-to-Friday service only. The company argues that it is ‘simply not sustainable to maintain a delivery network built for 20bn letters when we are now only delivering 7bn'. There is an obvious mismatch between Royal Mail's income and its obligations, and clearly reform has to come in some way.

Read more of is article at CAPX

PHOTO
Post box and telephone box at Huna, Caithness
Photographer Bill Fernie

Will our post boxes go the way of many of our telephone boxes.