Royal Mail is braced for the outcome of a five-month review by the communications industry regulator, Ofcom, on Wednesday. The watchdog is poised to lay out options for the future of deliveries, including the universal service obligation (USO) that mandates Royal Mail to deliver nationwide at a fixed price, six days a week.
Pre-empting the review, a row has already broken out over an expected option to cut Saturday letter deliveries. As recently as last year, Ofcom rejected the idea, which Royal Mail has pushed for. Industry sources claim a cut to a five-day service is the first step on a road to a three-day a week, or alternate day service, or potentially relaxing delivery targets.
Last week, Martin Seidenberg, the chief executive of Royal Mail’s parent company, said the USO was “unsustainable” and highlighted shifts in postal services across Europe in a letter to MPs.
However, some industry experts say comparing different countries’ services is difficult – with widely different populations, geographies, rates of letter volume decline and approaches to how customers are charged for distances of delivery and weight of packages. Here is how different countries are approaching their post.
France
A potential government subsidy to run the USO could be included in Ofcom’s review, and Seidenberg cited support in France in his letter. “The French government has granted a subsidy of €2.6bn between 2021-2025 for La Poste,” he wrote. In return, standard letters are delivered within three days against a target of 95% on time. Last year, the timbre rouge, a red stamp guaranteeing next day delivery, was replaced by a fiddly digital equivalent. A turquoise “services plus” now offers tracked delivery within two days, and compensation for late arrival.
Denmark
The Scandinavian nation has been arguably the most bullish in Europe in paring back its postal service, driven in part by a desire to reduce paper waste. Standard deliveries were first taken down to just one delivery a week in 2016 and, as of this month, the requirement for a single firm to handle a universal service has been ditched. Instead, several operators now offer a set price for letters and parcels nationwide. Exceptions have been made for visually impaired people, those living on small islands and international mail.
Italy
The Italian government has allowed its service to be reduced significantly, with the introduction of an alternate day delivery with a target of 80% arriving within one, two or three days depending on the region. A four-year, €1.3bn state subsidy for Poste Italiane reaches its final year this year. Meanwhile, Post Italiane’s 15-year remit to deliver to residents throughout Italy ends in 2026.
The company, which began serving Italians in 1862, has argued that the “structural decline” in the letters market brought by digital communications continues, although the plunge seen during the pandemic has subsided. A nascent project to implement “smart letter boxes” – with a screen and a detector to sense if there is mail inside – is ongoing.
Germany
Deutsche Post has the universal service mandate in Germany, meaning it delivers nationwide while its competitors can pick and choose where to deliver, albeit while paying a sales tax. A recent change to legislation, previously last updated in the 1990s, last year recommitted to a six-day-a-week letter service, but reduced the standard letter service from delivery within a day to three days. It also allowed a new next-day premium service to be introduced.
Spain
The state owned Sociedad Estatal de Correos y Telégrafos, which started life in 1716, handles mail in Spain, and shares responsibilities for delivering to Andorra with France. Rates differ by region – for example, those on the Canary Islands pay more. In January 2020, Correos was awarded €1.28bn (£1.1bn) for delivering the universal service over the previous decade. In 2017, a post office in rural Zamora went viral after it emerged it only opened for 15 minutes a day (11.15am to 11.30am) because of scarce postal traffic in the area.
Australia
In a nation of 25 million people spread across 7.7m sq km, debate over the future of Australia Post has been raging for some time, amid speculation over further privatisation of the postal service. Last month, the government announced that daily letter deliveries would be phased out across six locations.
Parcels will be delivered five days a week, whereas letter deliveries will now be spaced out, occurring every second or third day. Australians are expected to receive less than one letter each week by 2032.
