The Green Paper on Postal Reform (Department of Trade and Industry, 1994) was a United Kingdom government draft plan to privatise and regulate the UK postal services. It set out various options, the key points of the plan being,
- writing into law a universal service obligation for 6 day a week delivery and "affordable" prices
- a new independent regulator enforcing standards in a new Citizens' charter
- keeping Post Office Counters (now Post Office Ltd) under the same arrangement, with 19,000 privately run offices and 800 Crown offices
- introducing more competition by further reducing the postal monopoly from £1
Then it laid out the different options for consultation of,
- a 100% privatisation in a Stock Exchange flotation to the public and employees, making the Royal Mail a public company,
- a provisional conclusion to privatise Royal Mail and Parcelforce, with the government retaining 49% of shares in private companies, or,
- giving more commercial freedom to Royal Mail and Parcelforce while leaving them in public ownership.
In the event, the plans did not go through. It met with support from Post Office managers, who advocated full sale because in their view this was the only way to achieve commercial freedom. It met with opposition from unions, much of the public and backbench Conservative MPs.
Read more about Green Paper On Postal Reform: Debate, See Also
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