Orkney Community Planning Partnership has expressed opposition to proposals to give the Royal Mail greater freedom to set prices for postal deliveries.

The Partnership, which brings together a number of public sector organisations, is concerned about the potential impact and believes customers in the islands could end up paying more for postal services than those in more urban areas of the UK.

“While we recognise the need to improve the financial performance of the Royal Mail, the Universal Postal Service must be secured to ensure that the less populated and more remote rural and island areas are not disadvantaged,” said partnership chairman, Councillor Stephen Hagan. 

As a potential option to boost efficiency in postal services, the regulator Ofcom has suggested that the Royal Mail could be given the commercial freedom to determine contracts with other postal providers.

But in its response to a consultation on the plans, OCPP has warned that that this could potentially lead to higher prices in hard-to-reach locations like Orkney.

The Orkney community has already witnessed the negative discrimination which has resulted from the deregulation of the parcel delivery service,” the response says.

This has led to “excessive charges” for the supply of goods to the islands with, in many cases, UK businesses refusing to supply goods to addresses in the area.

Councillor Hagan said: “Our fear is that further deregulation of postal services - and the proposed removal of price caps in the Royal Mail’s letter and small package service - will also result in delivery charges being increased for customers in Orkney.”

“Under the proposals, some regulation would remain for the second-class letter service. But this is of no comfort to the many Orkney businesses that are completely dependent upon an affordable and efficient first-class postal service if they are to compete in the UK and global markets.

“In the opposite direction, next day delivery is essential to Orkney businesses when purchasing goods from UK suppliers which are not available locally.”

In its response, OCPP warns that maintaining a universal service only for second-class post would be a backward step for communities in remote areas.

Instead, it suggests regulation against the “discriminatory practices” of commercial courier services, which are currently – unlike the Royal Mail – under no obligation to provide deliveries to all areas of the UK.

The Partnership says it is also unacceptable for UK businesses to decline to supply goods (particularly small packages) to addresses in the Highlands and Islands when an accessible, affordable and effective UK-wide service is provided by the Royal Mail – and calls on Ofcom to rectify this.

“Not only would that go some way towards protecting these remote areas from the increased urbanisation of the UK’s courier services, but the Royal Mail could become more competitive and more efficient as a result,” the response adds.

What is the OCPP?

It’s all the organisations involved in planning services for Orkney – the key ones are NHS Orkney, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Voluntary Action Orkney, Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue and Northern Constabulary – and the Council, who lead the OCPP. All local authorities are required by the Scottish Government to have these Partnerships.

There are eight priorities or ‘themes’ that the OCPP, or ‘The Partnership’, works on – culture; transport and travel; health and wellbeing; housing; our economy; our environment; learning; and keeping Orkney safe.

The Partnership also works on the Single Outcome Agreement with the Scottish Government, a roadmap for where we want to go in Orkney and how we are going to get there as a community. It sets out how we will contribute to the Scottish Government’s priorities and importantly what the Government will do to support Orkney.