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Communications regulator Ofcom has today [24 January] published a document entitled ‘The future of the universal postal service’ in which it sets out options for redesigning the universal service obligation (USO), including ‘reducing the number of delivery days offered from the existing six-day-a-week obligation down to five or three days’.
This follows the news earlier in the week that Rishi Sunak “would not countenance” the scrapping of Saturday postal deliveries, according to a spokesperson for the prime minister.
The Downing Street spokesperson explained: “The PM’s strong view is that Saturday deliveries provide flexibility and convenience. They are important for businesses and particularly publishers. The prime minister would not countenance seeing Saturday deliveries scrapped.”
Ofcom is calling for ‘national debate on future of UK’s postal service’, based on its findings that letter volumes have halved from 2011/12 to 2022/23, from around 14 billion to 7bn. The document also notes that ‘the rate of decline has recently accelerated’.
The increase in parcel volumes, on the other hand, as a result of the rise in popularity of e-commerce has meant that ‘parcels are increasingly important to people’s daily lives and expectations of delivery service levels and product features have risen accordingly’. Parcel volumes have reportedly increased by one billion in the space of four years, from 2.6bn in 2018/19 to 3.6bn in 2022/23. Read more
Source: LOGISTICS MANAGER
