Royal Mail
Royal Mail is the national postal service in the United Kingdom. Historically, the Royal Mail, a government agency that is a state-owned company since 1969. Unlike previous state monopolies such as The Stationery Office, British Gas and British Telecom was privatized not in the 1980s and 1990s. It has the status of a public limited company, its shares but are owned by the British government.
A subsidiary of Royal Mail is the Post Office Limited, which operates the nationwide network of post offices. With the decline in business of Royal Mail this reduces the number of branches, which in the past led to complaints from the communities that are dependent on their services.
Royal Mail remains solely responsible for the postal delivery in the UK. Letters are tossed into boxes, delivered to a post office or picked up in larger companies. Deliveries are made daily ( except on Sundays or Bank Holidays ) to a fixed delivery charge for all destinations within the UK.
According to the report for the year ended 26 March 2006 fiscal year, the Royal Mail 84 million postal items transported every day and has a network of 14,376 post offices. The revenues amounted to 9.056 billion pounds and the profit was 312 million pounds.
History
The Royal Mail can their history traced back to 1516, when Henry VIII appointed a " Master of the Posts ". The Royal Mail postal service was taken in 1635 by Charles I. to the public. Under Charles II 1660 the General Post Office on his service.
Ralph Allen, Postmaster at Bath, signed 1719-1763 a series of contracts with the Post Office to develop the British postal network and expand. He organized a service with stagecoaches, the part of Wilson & Co. in London and part of Williams & Co. in Bath were provided. These early carriages of the Royal Mail were ordinary people carriages with coachmen in livery of the Royal Mail in principle.
Uniform Penny Post
In 1840 the Post fundamental reforms has undergone and introduced the Penny Post. For shipment within the UK there was only a single fee that had to be paid by the sender. To prove the payment of this fee, the sender of the Penny Black brought to the first adhesive postage stamp.
1960 to today
The GPO was transformed in 1969 by a ministry in a state-owned enterprise. The post of Postmaster General was abolished. The Post Office renamed itself in 2000 ' Consignia ' around. But this name change was very unpopular in both the general public and its own employees. The organization was called from 2002, then " Royal Mail Group plc " with the following operating divisions:
- Royal Mail for sending letters
- Parcelforce for shipping packages
- Post Office Limited, the country's manage the post offices in the style of retailing
The British government created in 2001 a regulatory body for the post, Postcomm, called and offered licenses to the mail transport for private companies. In the same year the Consumer Council for Postal Service was better known, was founded as Postwatch. It serves to ensure that their customers problems with the post office can express openly.
Starting from 1 January 2006 the Royal Mail lost its 350- year monopoly and the postal market in the UK was fully open for competitors.
On 12 September 2013, the British government announced the privatization of Royal Mail. 10 % of the shares going to employees, the remaining portion will be offered to institutional and private investors to buy. The post offices which are operated by the company " The Post Office ", on the other hand remain in state ownership.
The fleet
The air hub of the Royal Mail is at Nottingham East Midlands Airport. The Royal Mail has there a Boeing 737- 3Y0. In addition, Royal Mail operates the mail ship RMS St Helena, which connects the eponymous British overseas territory with England and South Africa.
Timeline
Non- postal services
The Royal Mail introduced telegraph services in 1870 and 1912 telephone services. She was responsible for the UK telephone network to the founding of British Telecom.
The National Giro Bank was founded in 1968 and sold in 1990 to the Alliance & Leicester.
Historically, many government payments and public pensions were paid in cash by the network of post offices. However, since the payment of such benefits was more and more by bank transfers in recent years, which led to a decline in sales of Royal Mail and the closure of branches.
Public interest
The Royal Mail is regulated by Postcomm, the. The interests of customers are performed by Postwatch. The relationship between the two organizations was not always good. In 2005, Postwatch was constitutionally ago against decisions of Postcomm.
The responsible Ministry, the Trade and Industry Ministry, the public financial interests are perceived by the Shareholder Executive.
Shipments to Germany
Depending on the type of shipment uses Royal Mail both German Post DHL, as well as its own subsidiary GLS in Germany as a logistics partner. From DHL delivery addresses managed ( Pack Station) that are not served by GLS, possibly lead to return to the sender. To control passed to GLS programs can also Royal mail package numbers are entered directly in the tracking of GLS to view the corresponding GLS parcel number and the shipment status.