Post office closures, strikes, an end to daily deliveries, stamp price rises, government reviewing competition – each day seems to bring a new story, and a fresh set of concerns for customers.

And with good reason – the tone of these stories may sometimes stray towards the hysterical, but it is clear that our postal service, and Royal Mail, stand at a crucial point in their history.

Royal Mail last week reported a loss of £100m for carrying out the universal postal service, the one-price-goes-anywhere service so crucial to UK postal customers.

Following this, the first recorded loss in 160 years for this fundamental service, a raft of scare stories emerged – an imminent end to Saturday deliveries, anticipated huge price hikes for stamps and so on.

It's worth reminding ourselves of the facts. The universal postal service is enshrined in law – the Postal Services Act 2000. Any significant change, such as ending Saturday deliveries, would require the Government of the day to bring forward primary legislation.

There has been no move to do this, and Royal Mail has said it wants the service to remain. In other words, the universal service is here to stay.

Let me make another thing clear – any steps to reduce the benefit to customers that the universal service offers would be vigorously opposed by Postwatch. Daily collections and deliveries and affordable stamp prices are fundamental necessities for a postal service that adequately serves customers. If this customer need does not change, nor should the obligation to meet that need.

The debate should not be about how to manage an irreversible decline in the mail service. Rather, it should be about how Royal Mail, and the postal industry, respond to the brave new world of diverse telecommunications channels and e-commerce, which brings as many opportunities as threats.

As a start, Royal Mail must modernise, and the Government has made available money for them to do this. New equipment, for example, to replace the antiquated kit all too often still in use, and a customer-focussed approach, rather than tired monopolistic thinking, would help the company move into the 21st century.

Such changes would also help Royal Mail compete with other postal companies. Competition is now a fact of life in the UK mail
market. Nineteen companies
currently have licences to offer postal services in the UK.

Larger mailers who are not satisfied with the service they receive can shop around for another one – as they are increasingly doing.

The recent Government review stated that competition is not benefiting smaller businesses and domestic customers. It may be true that larger mailers are feeling the greatest benefit of competition, but the review's conclusion misses the indirect benefits competition brings.

Competition is motivating Royal Mail to up its game – last year, for example, its quality of service figures were its best yet. Whether it is through increased choice or a better performing Royal Mail, competition is benefiting customers.

Post offices are perhaps the politically charged issue of the moment. And this week sees the start of Post Office Ltd's consultation on closures in West Yorkshire, with
63 branches proposed
for closure.

This is part of its UK-wide programme to close 2,500 branches, following the Government's decision that closures are needed to help stem Post Office Ltd's losses.

It would have been easy for Postwatch to oppose closures. However, with customer numbers failing and losses mounting, we recognised that the status quo was not tenable. Closures were happening anyway – the choice was whether these were managed or not. Only a planned approach gives the remaining network a chance to be sustainable.

So we accept the rationale for change, but that is not to say we accept all proposed changes. Postwatch has played a role in having over 100 closure proposals withdrawn so far. We scrutinise every proposal and where
we think customers would be unduly inconvenienced, we campaign
based on hard evidence – local community demographics, public transport arrangements, local topography and so on.

It is important that the six-week consultation period is used by local communities to develop such arguments and put them to Post
Office Ltd. Postwatch will continue to gather evidence and scrutinise proposals, and we hope households and businesses will be able to do likewise before consultation ends
on June 23.

More details on the proposals can be found at www.postoffice.co.uk/ networkchange.


Judith Donovan is chair of Postwatch Northern England, the watchdog for postal services. For more information go to www.postwatch.co.uk