What on earth is going on with Royal Mail?

It’s rarely out of the headlines.  We seem to get one postal delivery a week.  First and Second class? Forget that, nothing gets delivered on time unless it’s a parcel or other timed delivery service.

Or does it?

Have a look next time that you get a postal delivery.  Nearly everything you get will have a C9 code like this.

C9 means that it’s been sent with another postal delivery service – I believe that C9 10002 is Whistl and its subsidiaries – but delivered by Royal Mail.  I understand that most of these are supposed to be delivered within a week of Royal Mail receiving them pre-sorted.

How many letters do you receive with normal stamps or good old fashioned meter postage?

The answer is, these days, very few.  I’m looking at a selection of envelopes, all from Whistl, Citipost, Posthub (part of Whistl), The Delivery Group, etc.

And that’s the reason.  Not one of them is 1st or 2nd class mail and so doesn’t have to get from postbox to letterbox the next day or within 3 working days.

I remember one organisation announcing that it would use Whistl for its postal deliveries.  At the time, the service was offered was Whistl pickup on day 1, Royal Mail delivery day 3 (so no next day delivery). That’s now out the window.

I did a little digging on Royal Mail’s website.  They still offer business solutions such as metered posting, and also printed postage impressions for 1st class, 2nd class and economy (bulk mail, delivery within 6 working days).

I remember vaguely that when the private carriers were allowed to enter the postal market here, there was concern that Royal Mail was being expected to do the final delivery at marginal cost, based on “sure the postie is going round anyway.”  As I recall, there were fears that this was going to distort the market as Royal Mail 1st and 2nd class wouldn’t be able to compete.

The volumes suggest that that’s exactly what has happened – delivering business post and parcels on behalf of private companies now appears to be the majority of Royal Mail’s work, and as we watch the price of stamps soar (letters to Europe were minimum £2.20 in 2023.  They are now minimum £3.60) the number of postal delivery workers appears to be stagnating so they don’t have the manpower to deliver to the same house 6 days a week unless they get a letter sent by normal 1st class post every day.

Part of the problem is that it appears that Royal Mail hasn’t got its head round the idea that the solution to staff retention difficulties is to pay them better, but perhaps it is finally time to look at the contracts Royal Mail has with Whistl and other providers and say: “The majority of our letter delivery work consists of delivering your letters.  It’s time for you to pay the majority of our letter delivery costs.”

And maybe you and I need to start sending more letters.  Even if postage is a bonkers price.

Andy Boal

Andy has a very wide range of interests including Christianity, Lego, transport, music, the Alliance Party, chess and computers. Anything can appear in a post.

Andy has abandoned Twitter, needs to update his website, and has a BlueSky account.

www.andyboal.co.uk