First past the post
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by Ian Wylie • Parcelforce and its rivals are poised for a head-to-head confrontation as speculation mounts that part of the Post Office is about to be sold off.
Last week press reports speculated that the Government will sell a 39% stake in the Post Office while giving a further I 0 ° .0 to its 193,000 employees.
Trade & Industry Secretary Peter Mande[son refused to rule out this option at last week's TUC conference. There have also been suggestions that Mandelson might halve the £1 minimum letter delivery charge which other carriers are required to levy.
In July the Government called in privatisation specialists Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and KPMG to provide advice on the future of the Post Office. The results of that internal review are expected next month.
Any move to sell off even part of the Post Office would meet stiff opposition from the unions, but the Post Office, including Parcelforce, wants greater commercial freedom,
complaining that every year the Treasury is milking the business of its profits.
"We expect a decision very soon," says a Parcelforce spokeswoman. "We need our hands untied so that we can compete on a level playing field with the foreign predators who have entered our market."
Parcelforce employs 12,000 people with 8,000 vehicles, handles I35-million parcels a year and is the market leader in nextday guaranteed delivery.
Any lifting of the Post Office monopoly would blow the letter and parcels market wide open to rivals such as Securicor Omega Express, Business Post and TNT— which was recently bought by KPN, the Dutch Post Office.
Securicor Omega Express, which has a 16% share of the parcels market, is keen to take a share of the business letter market. In a trial postal delivery service in Birmingham and Manchester, Securicor staff dispatched, sorted and delivered 7,000 letters to businesses throughout the two cities,