What’s the future for Royal Mail’s Universal Service Obligation (USO)? It’s not just about letters! Tim Harrison, Senior Policy Researcher at Citizens Advice, joins me to discuss:
- Role of Citizens Advice as a consumer advocate
- Royal Mail’s USO for letter delivery and parcel delivery
- Comparison with letter delivery obligations in other countries
- Royal Mail exceeding regulatory obligations for parcel delivery
- Remote surcharges of up to 51% - and the definition of remote in the UK
- Which delivery companies deliver to remote parts of the UK?
- Digitally excluded customers and how they interact with the post office and letters network
- The 5.3 million digitally excluded people in the UK
- Quality of the letters service
- Reliability of parcel delivery
- Penalties on consumers for using the mail
- The consequences for consumers who can’t access the mail
- Why some people in the UK are unable to reliably and regularly access their letters
- How to give vulnerable people access to the mail
- Making pricing of mail and mail-related services (such as redirections) affordable for everyone
- The role of Ofcom (the UK regulator)