As you know, the GCA been active participants, on your behalf, of Ofcom’s consultation into the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and last week we submitted our response (download full submission below).
In the document, we outline our members’ position into the proposed cuts to cut Royal Mail’s service – including the ending of a six-days-a-week second class delivery.
Your concerns have been underlined by the responses to the petition we launched on your behalf, calling for MPs to scrutinise changes to the postal service. On 14th April this reached over 16,600 signatures – crossing the 10,000 threshold which mandates a response from government – and days after stamp prices rose significantly again.
Why the GCA Is Concerned About Ofcom’s Consultation on the Universal Service
The GCA is concerned that Ofcom’s current consultation on the future of the postal Universal Service is unbalanced and risks undermining the long-term viability of letter-sending in the UK. Specifically, in our view:
- It fails to consider how regulatory decisions affect consumer behaviour, increasing the risk of an accelerated decline in volumes — and potentially a future public bailout of Royal Mail.
- It gives too much weight to Royal Mail’s financial pressures and not enough to the public, social and economic value of a reliable postal service.
- It relies on flawed or incomplete data — including assumptions we first challenged over a year ago, see GCA response to Ofcom review April 2024.
- It risks misleading the public.
These proposals could leave greeting card lovers everywhere dependent on an unregulated expensive first class stamp to ensure their greeting cards arrive on time, so this is hugely concerning for our industry. Many consumers rely on the regulated second class postage, currently 87p, to send greeting cards. Ofcom say reductions in the second class service, to every other weekday, can be made without approval from MPs. This highlights the importance of our petition to parliament – we are asking for a parliamentary review of changes to our 500 year old postal service; we’re asking everyone to sign and share our petition. The more signatures we get, the more your voice will be heard – 100,000 signatures would even force the issue to be debated in parliament.
Concern has been expressed by others about the impact on the High St, such as Calum Greenhow, CEO of National Federation of Sub-postmasters, who called on postmasters to unite – citing recent PO research “... 75% of postmasters believe it could have a large or extremely large impact on their post office business and 64% believe it would have a significant impact on their non-post office business“.
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