Re-opening the Post

In March 2001, the Government set up the Postal Services Commission (Postcomm) to regulate the postal services market in the UK, in order to ensure the provision of a universal postal service and to promote effective competition and safeguard the interests of customers. Following on from an earlier NAO report (HCP 521, session 2001-02 (ISBN 0102913595) published in January 2002, this report examines developments in regulating the quality of service, focusing on the issue of price setting. The report finds that Postcomm has put in place service quality targets to protect the customer, and Royal Mail's performance against its targets has been improving since regulation was introduced. A number of recommendations are made to help improve the quality of service regime, including i) developing the information systems needed to provide a validation system for universal service failure reporting and to monitor collection and delivery times; and ii) monitoring the development of competition in the postal sector.