- UK courier in battle to survive
- New incentives for train operators
Last month, Royal Mail’s management team was hauled in front of a House of Commons select committee to answer questions about the business. It wasn’t a comfortable experience for International Distribution Services (IDS) chief executive Simon Thompson, who fended off allegations that the 500-year-old courier tracked the speed of its posties in order to discipline them, and had suspended legitimate sick pay during strike action.
One line of questioning stood out, however. During a discussion about Royal Mail’s universal service obligation (USO) – which requires it to deliver letters to all addresses in the UK, six days a week – one committee member said: “You would like to compete in the parcels market – but you have a statutory obligation to deliver six days a week. Is not the evidence before us that you cannot do both? You have to do one or the other.”