Achieving change together

We have been in ongoing discussions with both Unite CMA and the CWU on the changes which are needed.

We are in consultation with Unite CMA about the management restructuring, as well as discussing many other business issues with them. And in July, we began a programme of talks with CWU covering five key strands.

Both Royal Mail and CWU have entered the talks with a positive and constructive approach. We have made good progress in a number of areas and we have tabled the changes that we need to make. However, it is disappointing that we have not yet been able to reach agreement. We have increased the intensity of our discussions in recent weeks in recognition of the need to make progress more quickly.

To be clear, we will not be successful without change, and that change is best achieved together. For example, we want to work together on our network strategy to support our new parcel hubs and trials of separate daily parcel deliveries. And we need to dispense with old, outdated ways of working such as handwritten sign-in sheets, moving to automated clock-in, clock-out systems as used by other businesses for decades.

We need agreement so we can move quickly to get local sign-off on the removal of old letter-sorting machines, unneeded when letter volumes have halved since 2004. And we need to be able to review - and where needed, revise – our processing and distribution operations, and our-postmen and women’s walks, at least once a year, so that we can adapt these in line with the rapid decline in letter volumes.

These changes may seem small and obvious to the outside observer. But without them, we cannot achieve essential improvement in operational efficiency and better focus our efforts on the ever-increasing demands of our customers.