Review of the Regulation of Royal Mail

  • Start: 25 May 2016
  • Status: Closed
  • End: 03 April 2017

Statement published 1 Mar 2017

This statement concludes our review of the regulation of Royal Mail. The review was undertaken to ensure regulation remains appropriate and sufficient to secure the efficient and financially sustainable provision of the universal postal service.

Following the publication of a discussion document in July 2015, we issued a consultation in May 2016 which set out our proposals for the future regulatory framework for post. In preparing this statement, we have considered stakeholder responses to both of these documents.

This statement sets out our decision on the future regulatory framework for post, focussing on five key areas:

  • Maintaining a regulatory approach that recognises the structural decline in letters and increasingly competitive parcels sector, and extending the regulatory framework for a further five years;
  • Supporting competition and innovation in the parcels sector;
  • Tightening rules on access competition;
  • Focusing mail integrity regulation on appropriate areas and securing good consumer outcomes; and
  • Ensuring all regulatory conditions remain appropriate and fit-for-purpose.

This statement puts the new regulatory framework in place with immediate effect, aside from the new Universal Service Provider (USP) Access Condition. This will take effect from 1 April 2017 to allow Royal Mail to make any necessary changes to its commercial arrangements.

In addition, following feedback from consultation respondents, we have decided to amend our original proposal in relation to Postal Common Operational Procedures (PCOP) Code of Practice. We set out a new proposal in this document, and seek responses on this issue by 3 April 2017. To respond to our new proposal, please fill out the response form near the bottom of this page.

Note to stakeholders: Annex 7 (Annex 7 - Statutory Notification of Amendments to USP Access Condition) was first published on 1st March 2017. Please note that a new version of Annex 7 was published on 28 April 2017. This was in order to make a correction to the USP Access Condition as originally published on 1 March 2017 as it came to our attention that certain wording in USPA 6.4 from the previous version of the condition, which applied from 26 February 2014 until 1 March 2017, had been inadvertently omitted. A link to Annex 7 as corrected can be found below.


Main documents

Supporting documents

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Responses

Responder name Type
Association of International Courier Express Services.pdf (PDF File, 379.0 KB) Organisation
BBC Licence Fee Unit response to PCOP consultation (PDF File, 110.5 KB) Organisation
BBC Licence Fee.pdf (PDF File, 52.2 KB) Organisation
CFH.pdf (PDF File, 208.6 KB) Organisation
Citizens Advice.pdf (PDF File, 273.2 KB) Organisation
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