Comments on: What will be left of the Post Office in a few years? http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/ Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others. Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:05:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Bill Quango MP http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/#comment-2165 Bill Quango MP Thu, 15 May 2008 17:23:28 +0000 http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/?p=621#comment-2165 Remember POST OFFICES are PRIVATELY owned already. Post Office ltd does mostly not pay for 12,000 buildings, staff, staff NI contributions , pensions, council tax, business rates, waste costs, fuel, heat, electricity , lighting bills. They don't face sickness costs, maternity costs, only very very limited holiday costs. Minimum wage increases don't really trouble them and leases, legal costs on buildings , buildings and contents insurances, limited liability insurance etc etc is born by the appointed Subpostmaster/mistress. How would 'privatisation' help. They are already private. Plus wouldn't this completely destroy the social service provided? Who would want to fund that? It makes only a tiny profit. Royal Mail is the big loss maker, and its the pensions that are the biggest contributer to that. Deutche Post.. no competition remember. Lets see how well they do when La Poste is picking off the best business. Mail deregulation.. what a farce its been. To standardise prices across the EU its dismantled 100 years of service in each country. State TV, surely that should be on the agenda, for the same reasons.. And will bring very similar problems. "This is the BBC, bought to you by TF1 in association with RTL. Insert your payment card now and press the red button. You have selected:: News :: payable at 3.256p / minute for the first 5 minutes and 4.210p thereafter. Enter your pin now."<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('2165','Bill Quango MP'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('2165','Bill Quango MP','Remember POST OFFICES are PRIVATELY owned already. Post Office ltd does mostly not pay for 12,000 buildings, staff, staff NI contributions , pensions, council tax, business rates, waste costs, fuel, heat, electricity , lighting bills.\nThey don\'t face sickness costs, maternity costs, only very very limited holiday costs.\nMinimum wage increases don\'t really trouble them and leases, legal costs on buildings , buildings and contents insurances, limited liability insurance etc etc is born by the appointed Subpostmaster\/mistress.\n\nHow would \'privatisation\' help. They are already private. Plus wouldn\'t this completely destroy the social service provided? Who would want to fund that? It makes only a tiny profit.\n\nRoyal Mail is the big loss maker, and its the pensions that are the biggest contributer to that.\n\nDeutche Post.. no competition remember. Lets see how well they do when La Poste is picking off the best business. Mail deregulation.. what a farce its been. To standardise prices across\nthe EU its dismantled 100 years of service in each country.\n\nState TV, surely that should be on the agenda, for the same reasons.. And will bring very similar problems.\n\n\"This is the BBC, bought to you by TF1 in association with RTL. Insert your payment card now and press the red button. You have selected:: News :: payable at 3.256p \/ minute for the first 5 minutes and 4.210p thereafter. Enter your pin now.\"'); return false;">Quote this comment</a></div> Remember POST OFFICES are PRIVATELY owned already. Post Office ltd does mostly not pay for 12,000 buildings, staff, staff NI contributions , pensions, council tax, business rates, waste costs, fuel, heat, electricity , lighting bills.
They don’t face sickness costs, maternity costs, only very very limited holiday costs.
Minimum wage increases don’t really trouble them and leases, legal costs on buildings , buildings and contents insurances, limited liability insurance etc etc is born by the appointed Subpostmaster/mistress.

How would ‘privatisation’ help. They are already private. Plus wouldn’t this completely destroy the social service provided? Who would want to fund that? It makes only a tiny profit.

Royal Mail is the big loss maker, and its the pensions that are the biggest contributer to that.

Deutche Post.. no competition remember. Lets see how well they do when La Poste is picking off the best business. Mail deregulation.. what a farce its been. To standardise prices across
the EU its dismantled 100 years of service in each country.

State TV, surely that should be on the agenda, for the same reasons.. And will bring very similar problems.

“This is the BBC, bought to you by TF1 in association with RTL. Insert your payment card now and press the red button. You have selected:: News :: payable at 3.256p / minute for the first 5 minutes and 4.210p thereafter. Enter your pin now.”

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]]> By: Letters From A Tory http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/#comment-2164 Letters From A Tory Tue, 13 May 2008 10:14:04 +0000 http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/?p=621#comment-2164 It's all about incentives. If you say to a private company 'here is a large pot of cash, run this service for us' (e.g. PFI) they will screw you for every penny and provide a poor service because their incentive is to drive down costs. However, if you set up a system where the money is made by attracting customers (either by providing a quality service or possibly by offering additional services such as Saturday and Sunday deliveries) within a competitive market, everyone wins. It all comes down to where the incentives lie.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('2164','Letters From A Tory'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('2164','Letters From A Tory','It\'s all about incentives.\n\nIf you say to a private company \'here is a large pot of cash, run this service for us\' (e.g. PFI) they will screw you for every penny and provide a poor service because their incentive is to drive down costs. However, if you set up a system where the money is made by attracting customers (either by providing a quality service or possibly by offering additional services such as Saturday and Sunday deliveries) within a competitive market, everyone wins. It all comes down to where the incentives lie.'); return false;">Quote this comment</a></div> It’s all about incentives.

If you say to a private company ‘here is a large pot of cash, run this service for us’ (e.g. PFI) they will screw you for every penny and provide a poor service because their incentive is to drive down costs. However, if you set up a system where the money is made by attracting customers (either by providing a quality service or possibly by offering additional services such as Saturday and Sunday deliveries) within a competitive market, everyone wins. It all comes down to where the incentives lie.

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]]> By: batman http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/#comment-2163 batman Tue, 13 May 2008 09:50:15 +0000 http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/?p=621#comment-2163 How do you think that introducing more competition will prevent a further reduction in services, for example Saturday deliveries, the service with which you began your post?<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('2163','batman'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('2163','batman','How do you think that introducing more competition will prevent a further reduction in services, for example Saturday deliveries, the service with which you began your post?'); return false;">Quote this comment</a></div> How do you think that introducing more competition will prevent a further reduction in services, for example Saturday deliveries, the service with which you began your post?
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]]> By: Letters From A Tory http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/#comment-2162 Letters From A Tory Mon, 12 May 2008 09:20:08 +0000 http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/?p=621#comment-2162 Obviously the EU competition rules have had a massive bearing on the Post Office, but being forced to introduce competition is very different from restructuring the Post Office network. And where are the references for the criticisms of Deutsche Post? Their postal service is a hell of a lot more advanced and efficient than ours.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('2162','Letters From A Tory'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('2162','Letters From A Tory','Obviously the EU competition rules have had a massive bearing on the Post Office, but being forced to introduce competition is very different from restructuring the Post Office network.\n\nAnd where are the references for the criticisms of Deutsche Post? Their postal service is a hell of a lot more advanced and efficient than ours.'); return false;">Quote this comment</a></div> Obviously the EU competition rules have had a massive bearing on the Post Office, but being forced to introduce competition is very different from restructuring the Post Office network.

And where are the references for the criticisms of Deutsche Post? Their postal service is a hell of a lot more advanced and efficient than ours.

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]]> By: beachhutman http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/#comment-2161 beachhutman Sun, 11 May 2008 15:54:07 +0000 http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/?p=621#comment-2161 Yeah, Deutsche post like now balances its books with a massive operation supporting fraud and scam mailings - rather like out own Royal Mail tries top do in association with Spring in the Netherlands. It is not only "competition" that has done for the UK PO of course, it is mainly the EU. Almost without exception, the big changes that have so damaged the UK service have been EU based on EU requirements.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('2161','beachhutman'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('2161','beachhutman','Yeah, Deutsche post like now balances its books with a massive operation supporting fraud and scam mailings - rather like out own Royal Mail tries top do in association with Spring in the Netherlands. It is not only \"competition\" that has done for the UK PO of course, it is mainly the EU. Almost without exception, the big changes that have so damaged the UK service have been EU based on EU requirements.'); return false;">Quote this comment</a></div> Yeah, Deutsche post like now balances its books with a massive operation supporting fraud and scam mailings – rather like out own Royal Mail tries top do in association with Spring in the Netherlands. It is not only “competition” that has done for the UK PO of course, it is mainly the EU. Almost without exception, the big changes that have so damaged the UK service have been EU based on EU requirements.
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]]> By: Letters From A Tory http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/#comment-2160 Letters From A Tory Sun, 11 May 2008 07:32:15 +0000 http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/?p=621#comment-2160 Who said anything about privatisation? You can very conceivably have a state-owned postal network with private companies competing for customers, which is certainly not 'privatisation'. I'd also like to say that I really hate people saying 'privatisation doesn't work, look at what happened in the past'. Of course things like rail privatisation were completely botched, but that doesn't mean involving private companies can't improve the situation. After all, Deutsche Post in Germany does a very good job of running the efficient postal system and is a private company.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('2160','Letters From A Tory'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('2160','Letters From A Tory','Who said anything about privatisation? You can very conceivably have a state-owned postal network with private companies competing for customers, which is certainly not \'privatisation\'.\n\nI\'d also like to say that I really hate people saying \'privatisation doesn\'t work, look at what happened in the past\'. Of course things like rail privatisation were completely botched, but that doesn\'t mean involving private companies can\'t improve the situation. After all, Deutsche Post in Germany does a very good job of running the efficient postal system and is a private company.'); return false;">Quote this comment</a></div> Who said anything about privatisation? You can very conceivably have a state-owned postal network with private companies competing for customers, which is certainly not ‘privatisation’.

I’d also like to say that I really hate people saying ‘privatisation doesn’t work, look at what happened in the past’. Of course things like rail privatisation were completely botched, but that doesn’t mean involving private companies can’t improve the situation. After all, Deutsche Post in Germany does a very good job of running the efficient postal system and is a private company.

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]]> By: MLH http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/#comment-2159 MLH Sat, 10 May 2008 17:49:58 +0000 http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/?p=621#comment-2159 Yeah, because privatizing the post office will work, just like it did with all those former nationalised companies...<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('2159','MLH'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('2159','MLH','Yeah, because privatizing the post office will work, just like it did with all those former nationalised companies...'); return false;">Quote this comment</a></div> Yeah, because privatizing the post office will work, just like it did with all those former nationalised companies…
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]]> By: Harry Hook http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/05/10/what-will-be-left-of-the-post-office-in-a-few-years/#comment-2158 Harry Hook Sat, 10 May 2008 17:19:52 +0000 http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/?p=621#comment-2158 Perhaps nows the time to consider renaming your blog ...Emails From A Tory<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('2158','Harry Hook'); return false;">Reply to this comment</a> - <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('2158','Harry Hook','Perhaps nows the time to consider renaming your blog ...Emails From A Tory'); return false;">Quote this comment</a></div> Perhaps nows the time to consider renaming your blog …Emails From A Tory
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