From Hellmail:

The Royal Mail today blamed falling mail volume for a loss-making situation in its letters business. Despite a positive impact from its modernisation efforts, the number of letters delivered each day has fallen from 84 million to 68 million, echoing a decline in the number of letters being felt by postal operators around the world and further supporting the findings of the Hooper review which suggests that the Universal Service obligation is unsustainable without a major overhaul of the UK postal service.

As mail volumes continued to decline this year, increased competition saw operating profit fall to £52 million in the six months to the end of September. Operating profit in the first half of the 2010-11 financial year was just over 1% on Group-wide revenues of £4.4 billion.

Revenue actually fell more sharply than operating profit, which Royal Mail put down to a positive impact from modernisation, but the pace of change is still not keeping up with the negative impact of volume decline and increased competition. The latest figures are likely to bolster government plans to sell the business in 2011.

Mail delivered for other companies through access agreements rose by 13% for the same period. Royal Mail loses an average of 2.5p on access mail, which accounts for more than one in three of all letters delivered

The Group’s other two businesses, Parcelforce Worldwide and GLS, the European parcels business, both increased their operating profits in the first half of the year, despite intensifying competition in their markets, and both are leaders in their markets for customer service. First and Second Class mail, Standard parcels and key business mail services are beating their targets according to the latest preliminary figures.

Moya Greene, Royal Mail Group’s Chief Executive Officer, said:

“Trading conditions over the last six months have been exceptionally tough. I pay tribute to our frontline employees for the way they are getting on with the essential modernisation changes we are introducing. But with widespread predictions in the postal world that mail volumes will continue falling, perhaps by up to 40% over the next five years in the UK, it’s absolutely vital we step up the pace of modernisation to become more efficient to ensure we preserve the all-important, one-price-goes-everywhere Universal Service for all our customers and keep providing the services our customers need and want.”

Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary was more scathing and accused the government of setting the Royal Mail up to fail, saying:

“Today’s results are the strongest argument yet for keeping Royal Mail publicly-owned and fully integrated. Overall there was a Group profit and the quality of service has been maintained. Would anyone expect a private company to provide the universal service and good quality of service in this context? We think not.”

Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said:

“These stark results leave us in no doubt that regulation of Letters and unfair pricing controls are strangling Royal Mail. In our opinion, pricing and regulation – not mail volumes – are the main factors here. Mail volumes fell by less than the same period last year but the loss of 2.5p per item to competitors to deliver their mail is a recipe for disaster.

“There is no private company better placed than Royal Mail to deal with the challenges in the postal industry. The modernisation programme is fully-funded and is already delivering productivity improvements. If the pension issue is dealt with by government, Royal Mail’s cashflow will go into the black by removing the £282 million annual deficit payments.”

Steve Lawson, editor for Hellmail Postal News said:

“Not only are letters in decline in real terms, but from a financial point of view, access mail is “fluff mail” which does not deliver anywhere near the same revenues as mail that arrives directly through Royal Mail’s front door. In terms of profitability it is like filling out a good proportion of Royal Mail lorries with polystyrene to make up the numbers. From Royal Mail’s point of view, volume decline is actually greater than it is on paper. If you put quantity and profitability on the same graph, they would be heading in different directions” he said.

via Royal Mail Letters In The Red In Loss Making Year.

Copyright © 2008 Hellmail – All Rights Reserved

From Hellmail.co.uk:

Today is ‘World Post Day’, marking the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (USU) and the beginning of the free flow of global mail. In the United Kingdom, the origins of the postal service date back to 1516 when Henry VIII established a “Master of the Posts” Read the rest of this entry »

Royal Mail is launching the world’s first ‘Intelligent Stamp’ through its latest issue of Special Stamps – Great British Railways. The stamp set will combine state-of-the-art technology with history and heritage, bringing stamps in to the 21st century for stamp collectors everywhere.

The stamps will be the first in the world to work with image recognition technology. When activated by a smartphone on the iPhone or Android platforms the stamps will launch exclusive online content created by Royal Mail.

Philip Parker, Royal Mail Stamps spokesperson says: “This is the first time a national postal service has used this kind of technology on their stamps. We’re very excited to be bringing intelligent stamps to the nation’s post.

“Intelligent stamps mark the next step in the evolution of our stamps, bringing them firmly into the 21st century. Royal Mail’s special stamps mark key events and anniversaries in the UK’s heritage, through a programme which aims to be both educational and informative. Through Intelligent Stamp technology, our stamps will open up to a whole new world of information, interest and fun to stamp collectors and the millions of people who will receive them on letters in the coming months alike.”

The first Intelligent Stamps are incoporated into the Great British Railways special stamps issue. For the launch, Royal Mail has delved into its rich cultural history and created a short film of Bernard Cribbins reading W H Auden’s poem, The Night Mail – first made famous in The Post Office’s own film from 1936.

Bernard Cribbins says: “WH Auden wrote the Night Mail poem in 1936 for the Post Office’s own blockbuster film of the same name, which has, for years, remained in the hearts and minds of many. I’m excited to be bringing it to a brand new audience, and to help take Royal Mail Stamps into a new era by using state of the art interactive technology.”

Intelligent stamp technology is free to use and will be available on selected future special stamp issues.

How to use the Intelligent Stamp

Using an intelligent stamp is really simple. All users need to do is go to the app store on their smartphone and search for the JUNAIO application. Junaio works on both iPhone and Android phones. iPhone users will find the app in the iTunes store and Android users need to go to the Android Market. The application is free of charge and you can easily download it to your phone, just as you would any other app.

Once you have downloaded the Junaio application, open it and then go to the Royal Mail Channel and select the Great British Railways logo.

Once this has been activated, the phone will then open its camera. Place the camera over the stamp image as if you were taking a photo of the stamp. When the stamp is recognised, the exclusive Royal Mail content will run automatically.

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BBC News

From the Times of London:

A postcard from Poland that was addressed “Khumi, Yellow Door, Wilmslow, England” has arrived at the correct house.

Which prompted this letter to the editor:

Sir, Congratulations to the postmen of Wilmslow (news report, Feb 16). My brother (6ft 5in in his socks), who lives in the second largest town in Orkney, once received a card addressed to “The Big Englishman, Stromness”.

Followed by this:

Sir, Like “The Big Englishman, Stromness” (letter, Feb 19 ), my late father also received prompt delivery of a letter with a descriptive address.

His was: “Colonel with three moustaches, c/o Buckingham Palace, London”.

Larger-than-average eyebrows are a (male) family feature.

Which in turn led to:

Sir, Some years ago, I had a similar postal experience to those of “The Big Englishman, Stromness” and “Colonel with three moustaches” (letters, Feb 19 and 22 ).

I received an aerogramme addressed to “Napoleon and Josephine, Halesworth”.

My husband (Nicholas) wasn’t sure whether its exceptionally speedy delivery was cause for congratulation or concern.

A sign that maybe you have too much time on your hands?

An Experiment

Take one blank postcard, write your own address on one side with a stamp, and your friend’s address on the other side with a stamp.

What do the sorting office do in this situation?! They could either

a) Send it back to me
b) Send it to Dave
c) Send it backwards and forwards, or
d) If they have a sense of humour, cut it in half with a cheese wire!

I thought that if I sent it from within my postcode area they would send it straight back to me as the nearest address. So, I popped the prepared postcard inside an envelope and sent it to a friend who lives approximately between me and Dave to send on from there.

Postal Tug of War
de omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis

From Flickr: Looks like the Royal Mail has problems with its customers…

Click for more signs of abuse from the UK

How the Royal Mail got an undeliverable package home, thanks to a lucky break…

wongablog

A jiffy bag containing a replica hand grenade purchased on eBay broke open in a post office in Wales- resulting in a few tense moments…

icWales – Jiffy bag bomb scare

From The Times: the moral maze in the UK:

“When letters were delivered with the stamps uncancelled, I used to cut them off and re-use them. But now I think that that was dishonest, so I ignore the temptation. After all, the Royal Mail has completed its obligation of posting that letter to me, so why shouldn’t it be paid?”

Click to read the response, which gets extra points for the use of the word ‘churlish’.

Modern morals – Times 2 – Times Online