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[greygeorge] 10/4/2023 22:46

Post Office Ltd is no longer part of IDS, it was carved out over a decade ago, as I already stated. HOWEVER, Post Office Ltd is obligated under contract to offer IDS services and ONLY IDS services to the public. At a ridiculously reduced payment rate for parcels acceptance. The subpostmasters are expected, amongst other things, to segregate the mails into 1st and 2nd, tag and seal the bags with the corresponding label, and hand to the collections officer. Some of these mails bags get randomly labelled by the collections officer with a red X label so that IDS can check random samples and 'fine' Post Office Ltd for non-compliance. this is one small, but effective way in which IDS - parcels, especially - robs from the taxpayer-funded Post Office to reduce their own overheads, whilst ensuring they have the monopoly on parcels post mailed by the Great British public.

IDS's 'profitable' parcels business is built on theft from the taxpayer in the form of Post Office subsidies, as well as the work performed by Royal Mail employees in collecting, sorting and shifting a massive tonnage of parcels, disguised as 'mails logistics'. Yes, by all means, let's let Post Office Ltd offer the whole range of courier services available in the free market, and let RM concentrate on letters deliveries, and in return IDS will run its' parcels business on the same terms and under the same rules as every other courier.

Then let's see just how long IDS remains such a miraculous cash cow.

[not my real name] 10/4/2023 09:38

Good morning MickinVest,

"A total lala land thread of eegits postings away day in and out posting verbal diarrhea"
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I think you should have read a few more posts before writing your unnecessary diatribe. The last post we put up were quite a bit "tongue in cheek" rather than real proposals which should have been quite obvious to the average reader.

Throughout the last few months we have been talking about the potential future of the entire company rather that a few vacancies in an office in Central Scotland but that by no means detracts from the validity of your comment relating to the issue.

I am a lifelong Labour voter who despised Thatcher with a venom I have never had for any other political figure in history so I certainly don't live in her shadow.

If they get "their 3 day delivery a week after admin" I will be absolutely thrilled as they will almost certainly be profitable again and that is what every shareholder is here for. It would, however, make no difference to GLS as they are an international parcel company based in the Netherlands and deal mainly in the European Union where they can operate without customs or borders restrictions, unlike Royal Mail.

They have 749 million potential customers compared to RMs 69 million. RM is a big fish in a goldfish bowl. GLS is a baby great white shark!
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All IMHO,

NMRN

[lefrene] 10/4/2023 09:14

Mickinvest, I didn't explain my idea of pay clearly enough. The minimum wage is the base level but the rewards for being efficient and accurate carrying out the work should be such that the pay received would be double or triple the basic wage. ie a very genuine incentive that links effort/diligence to reward.

I have in the past built up my own business where I employed circa 200 C+E HGV drivers and 50 warehouse workers. I do have hands on experience of motivating people to do the job properly first time.

Interesting that 13 vacancies can't br filled, is this a situation created by the distortions of the welfare system?

[mickinvest] 09/4/2023 23:12

NMRM, I was coming from a stand point of a scorched earth where all existing staff have been shown the exit, and one starts from scratch. Motivate staff by paying minimum wage,

A total lala land thread of eegits postings away day in and out posting verbal diarrhea.

The office round the corner from me has 13 vacancies, typical central belt scotland area and if they can't fill them nobody can and not surprised as you're talking about a pound an hour more than the supermarkets without the 25km walks.

Time some here started talking sense and stop living in Thatcher's shadow, if they did get their 3 day delivery a week after admin, they would rip the backside out of GLS parcel delivery.

[not my real name] 09/4/2023 19:27

lefrene,

If Simon Thompson gets the push I'll vote for you to be next CEO! (As long as you promise not to cut my grossly overpaid run.)

NMRN

[lefrene] 09/4/2023 12:19

NMRM, I was coming from a stand point of a scorched earth where all existing staff have been shown the exit, and one starts from scratch. Motivate staff by paying minimum wage, but boosted by bonuses linked to profits, and other rewards for money saving and/or improved efficiencies. ie, team systems without any managers, each team to elect their group leader, who gets to wear a nice cap or badge or something of that sort.

Meanwhile in the real world we'll probably get team Starmer next election, and he will pour public money into a Union castrated mail sinecure. Whatever it takes to keep the Union voting for Labour.


So 'ghost runs' still going on. It just indicates how the senior management don't pay any attention to what depots are doing. I did find quite a few instances where I realised that the depots simply don't talk to each other or co-operate. As if each depot is competing with the other depots to score some variety of 'brownie points'. One of the runs I did, a 200 mile round trip to Heathrow, had been cancelled two years earlier. That's at least 1000 miles per week at 8.5 mpg or 100,000 wasted miles, and that's only one ghost run. In the real world the whole depot would be closed down over a weekend and all the managers sacked, and the depot re-started on the Monday with a whole new team.

[isis] 08/4/2023 16:50

Without change it cannot survive unless heavily subsidised. The truth is nearly everything can be done online now except receiving packages and parcels.
All my Show Tickets, Travel Documents, Banking, you name is done on line now, whether I like it or not!

[lefrene] 08/4/2023 16:13

isis, correct The Post Office is a separate entity. In a brave new world they presumably could decide to use other carriers. Some bits need to be left in place such as Post Offices and post boxes, and distribution depots/sorting offices, but the people and culture and imposed artificial burdens could all go. In deed the active investor could jump on the 'green' bandwagon pointing to all the waste mileage that would be saved.

[lefrene] 08/4/2023 16:07

greygeoarge, after selling my employment agency I did part time trunking for RM (and others) simply to generate a visible income. I have seen RM from the inside, and having built up a driving agency from nothing, I can assure that I'm highly attuned to waste at every level. RM is awash with waste, there's potential savings/efficiencies to be made just about everywhere. To say nothing of an over staffed management, a typical civil service structure of fancy titles for people promoted beyond their skill set. I also found deception/corruption, which might now have been washed through, although I suspect that once there's a culture of deception it probably persists. Ghost runs may have stopped now, but I certainly came across them, done to save jobs, but literally running empty trucks on journeys that had been deleted, in order to put miles on the vehicles and continue to consume the 'normal, amount of fuel through put, so that things looked correct on paper for the number of staff employed.

I worked out of several RM depots but mostly out of a place near Avonmouth which provided traction to the mail and parcel sides, even though separate businesses they sensibly cooperated with traction and trailers, although it led to typical games of one side trying to steal better kit from the other side, especially trailers.

The parcel side has far fewer empty runs compared to the mail side, of which approx one third of the runs are completely empty. They seem to have never tried to find return run work, something unheard of in real world transport. It comes about because the mail is run on a railway style time table, in order to meet delivery time tables required for the final van last mile delivery runs. This might have been necessary when mail deliveries were critical for day to day business of the country, but now replaced by emails. But now the operation should be run on lines to reduce wasted empty mileage, but RM is stuck in an almost 19th century inflexible culture, which was appropriate back then when most stuff of any distance went by rail.

So let the thing go bust, throw a six and start from a fresh place. It could be profitable and provide a decent service, it would be fun rolling it out and making it work. But first it has to be demolished, clean off the bits you want to keep such as some of the depots and machine sorting sites. Then recruit fresh young people who have no connection with the old ways of doing things, who don't have a sense of entitlement. Possibly a franchise system would be the most efficient, using a core trunking system where each franchisee has to pay for each artic run. But where the franchisee decides how many runs they need. ie vehicles run when required by load volume, and not simply because a time table says so.

I have many times done a 780 km round trip to Yorkshire empty in both directions, the 'system' making this 'profitable' to the distribution depot at presumably at the expense of the receiving depot. (A central computer system orders the vehicle even though the depot providing that vehicle knows it won't be needed, but won't make the phone call to the proposed destination to confirm this) Those managers should be dismissed instantly, which is what would happen to them in the real world, but not in the magic world of RM!

The one thing that does work very well in a civil service culture is vehicle maintenance. The trucks were always up to scratch and any problem no matter how minor was always dealt with immediately.

Plainly the major shareholder in IDS wants to see RM go bust, either to dump it altogether, or to do a scorched earth re-invention of it. The parcel side will no longer have the blood sucked out of it by the imbecilic mail side of the operation. Shareholders will see an immediate lift in the value of their shares. The sooner it happens the best for all concerned including the striking workers, as they will have been thrust into the real world, and will find out just what their true value is.

I know quite a few in the Bristol depot were expecting things to break up about 10 years ago and were placing themselves to buy vans/trucks and contract to whatever new business emerged. They all know it can't go on as it is, and that it's been like it for a decade or more.

[isis] 08/4/2023 15:11

The USO makes it unprofitable, the Post Office does not sort or deliver the mail they just sell Stamps and stuff as well as alot of other admin not concerned with Royal Mail.
The USO is unprofitable because of archaic work practices and the demise of Letters being sent - It's not difficult to work out really!

[greygeorge] 08/4/2023 14:45

lefrene - That's an interesting outlook on how IDS could make money you've got there. So, if it just got rid of the loss-making bits, everything will be ok ? When IDS was Royal Mail, and Post Office Ltd was part of the group, it was supposedly Post Office Ltd that was the greatest loss-making division. Post Office Ltd was loss-making largely because it contracted with RMG (IDS as it was back then) at ridiculously low rates, to give the impression that RMG 'could be a winning company, if only it got rid of the loss-making Post Offices. So, they carved Post Office Ltd off the group, and it became a burden on the taxpayer so that RMG figures could look healthier pre-privatisation.

Now, you're being told IDS could be a profitable company, if only it could rid itself of the loss-making Royal Mail division. Do you see the pattern here ? IDS, when or if it sheds Royal Mail, will not be the golden goose you seem to think it should be. We're into the second decade now of IDS (RMG, as was) telling the world 'We could be such a great company, if only...'

Terrible management at all levels is endemic in IDS, yet it's never their fault that as a whole, the company is a fail.

[lefrene] 08/4/2023 11:28

Dumping RM plainly would be very good for IDS, and the share price. Let HM Gov that interferes so much, pick the thing up. Then continue to run it as a branch of the Civil Service at huge public expense, carrying other peoples mail at a huge loss, and running no end of mileage into obscure bits of the country everyday. Even the French have a more sensible system. The rural posties provide their own van and fuel, and only has to make a delivery once a week if there's insufficient mail to justify a daily journey.

If you're expecting urgent mail you phone the postie and go and collect it yourself.

It would be satisfying seeing the Mail service made profitable by the application of common sense, and the goodwill of motivated staff who's income is directly related to how well they were doing the job. We seem to be heading into a big slump, so perhaps now is the time for change towards efficiency.

[not my real name] 08/4/2023 09:18

greygeorge,

I wouldn't say it's all good but it's definitely not all bad. If IDS put RM into administration (as looks increasingly likely) we will own what is left. i.e. a highly profitable parcel company valued at £4 bn.

Most of us are shareholders so DO really care!

NMRN

[casholaa] 08/4/2023 00:41

Don't worry George, there's plenty of time.

[greygeorge] 07/4/2023 20:46

Well, NMRN, it's all good then, isn't it ?

(I'm not a holder, so don't really care).

[not my real name] 07/4/2023 18:10

greygeorge,

"Anyway, I guess all those cost savings have run their course now, and IDS is being revealed as the financial basket case it has always been."
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Royal Mail is a basket case at the moment valued at minus £1.8 bn. GLS is a highly profitable parcels business valued at £4 bn.

IDS is a combination of both valued at £2.2 bn.

NMRN

[casholaa] 07/4/2023 16:20

Hopefully the unionsters will strike.

[greygeorge] 07/4/2023 14:03

lefrene - '...the separation is done at the place of origin, and actually doesn't cause any extra work at all as it passes through the system. It's one of the few high profit ideas that worked at no extra cost...'

Yep, one of the greatest freebies royal Mail ever got. Over a decade ago, when Post Office Ltd was separated from Royal Mail, Post Office Ltd agreed that subpostmasters (and Post Office managers and staff in 'Crown Offices') would separate 1st and 2nd Class parcels as they received them from customers, at absolutely no extra cost to Royal Mail. I brought it up with the local CWU rep, who wasn't bothered that work was being taken from them at zero cost to Royal Mail. The 'National Federation of Subpostmasters who falsely called themselves a 'Union' betrayed their members - as usual - as they did in in the 'Horizon' disgrace (Judas George Thompson, who was Chief Executive of the NFSP actually told a Parliamentary Hearing looking into problems with the 'Horizon computer system that all Post Office convictions were sound, in his opinion because in every organisation 'there are a few bad apples' was always in the pocket of Post Office Ltd.

At the same time, Post Office Ltd signed a mails contract with Royal Mail, offering it's Post Office services to Royal Mail for 5 years at (approximately) 'inflation LESS 2%' which at the time meant Post Office Ltd was killing its' subpostmasters financially in order to prop up the share price and dividends for RM shareholders.

Anyway, I guess all those cost savings have run their course now, and IDS is being revealed as the financial basket case it has always been.

[lefrene] 06/4/2023 19:31

encarter the separation is done at the place of origin, and actually doesn't cause any extra work at all as it passes through the system. It's one of the few high profit ideas that worked at no extra cost. First Class simply goes in a trolley with a blue (I think) cover so that it can easily be identified, and thus quickly moved through a depot, then placed last onto the back of a truck and thus first off it. A second class trolley would be removed and thus delayed, to make room for it if necessary. The final end distribution is with the normal mail.

[casholaa] 06/4/2023 18:28

Err... yeah, but, don't forget that in the UK we have a class system

[geckotheglorious] 06/4/2023 17:49

As usual Leffy, you make sense amidst all these Union apologists.
Getting rid of the jobsworths is a necessity.



encarter
Post 655
"Separating mail into two classes is another waste of resources"

Agreed

[encarter] 06/4/2023 16:20

Separating mail into two classes is another waste of resources.

[lefrene] 06/4/2023 15:46

Oh dear, someone has quite a bit to learn about this game.

I guess those going on strike in RM also have quite a bit to learn too.

From what I saw inside of RM, there will be quite a few wanting to operate local distribution depots as independents. They all know just how wasteful RM is with it's civil service style of operating methods. They know there are good profits to be made if they can dump all the box ticking junk that stymies the thing.

Let it go bust, dismiss the jobsworths, get in self employed contractors providing their own vehicles, and renting space in the depots, but allowed to run vehicles when it makes economic sense. Anyone who needs a next day service will need a premium courier style service.

Once the thing is up and running as a proper actual commercial business, re-float it.

Incidentally for anyone who might think First Class postage is a scam, I can in fairness confirm that First Class really does go to the head of the queue, at every stage of the process.

[not my real name] 06/4/2023 15:29

Naughty Casholaa! :-)