Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 187)
MONDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2005
POSTWATCH
Q180 Mark Hunter: It is quite complex
information but you are still of the view that this can be provided
in such a way that customers can make sense of it and use it to
make an informed choice?
Dr Doherty: Yes. There should
be the ability to get to that point where we can publish some
information, but the key point is that it must be meaningful to
customers. At the moment it will be a little bit like comparing
apples with pears or with bananas. We want to give them something
which is meaningful to them and allows them to make genuine comparisons.
Q181 Mark Hunter: Is such detailed
information being made available anywhere else in the EU at the
moment?
Dr Doherty: The universal service
providers are required to measure their quality of service and
to give the regulator the information. Some are required to publish
it and some are not. For competitors in the market, we are not
aware of that, currently at least.
Q182 Mark Hunter: Are you aware,
in the European Union currently, of where that information is
made available for customers to use as a guide to which service
to choose?
Dr Doherty: For any licensed operators
who are competing with the universal service provider, I am not
aware of anywhere in the European Union at the moment where quality
of service or complaints data is published.
Q183 Chairman: Do you think that
Royal Mail, the Post Office, can remain a nationalised industry
in this new, competitive, liberalised environment but which does
not have the full freedom of the private sector?
Mr Carr: Certainly it can. I suppose
one of the best examples—because even though it is a free
market the national operators remain dominant—is Australia
Post, where profits have grown for 14 years on the trot, with
only one price increase, just by making themselves more and more
efficient and adapting their products and innovating.
Q184 Rob Marris: As you may know,
we are taking evidence from Postcomm next and from what you have
said today in your submission, and in their submission, there
is quite an overlap between Postwatch's views and Postcomm's views,
Postcomm being the national regulatory agency, and so on. As you
have mentioned, if there is a dispute it could go to the competition
commission, and so on. I am bemused. What is the point of Postwatch
when we have got Postcomm?
Mr McGregor: In a sense, I will
throw the answer back to you as legislators. When we were set
up by Parliament, Parliament took the view that there was a strong
need for better, more informed consumer representation. This reflected,
I think, the experience of the previous 15 or 20 years of economic
regulation, where economic regulators do tend to be rather academic,
rather distant creatures, they love their RPI-X+Y+Z type formulas,
which are not very customer-friendly and are not very easy to
explain. The Government, in its White Paper at the time and in
the announcements that it made at the time, and it has done this
across the utility sector, said that there needs to be stronger
consumer representation, there needs to be a much better dialogue
with customers to understand what it is they want and whether
or not the system is delivering it and there needs to be a customer
champion who can speak out volubly on behalf of customers and
not just on behalf of the industry or on behalf of the economic
regulator, which was the case previously.
Q185 Rob Marris: You have given me
the Government's view, you have been talking all afternoon, understandably,
about efficiencies, would it not be more efficient to get rid
of yourselves? You must have a view on that.
Mr McGregor: I would like to see
us abolished, because at the time that it would be right for us
to be abolished there would be a fully functioning competitive
marketplace and there would not be the need for a consumer council,
nor probably would there be a need for an economic regulator.
Competition is the best protection that customers can have.
Q186 Mr Hoyle: Obviously, you are
looking at new jobs, but I believe, Peter, that you are leaving
us and can I say how pleasant it has been over the years that
you have been coming before this Committee. You are going off
to the private sector. Are you going back into the postal business?
Mr Carr: No. I can assure you
that I am not. As you know, I have always been a shopkeeper and
I shall be continuing my interest in the retail end of the market.
Q187 Mr Hoyle: You will not be advising
any of these new companies?
Mr Carr: No, I do not think they
would even seek my advice, Lindsay. Chairman, can I take this
opportunity of saying I have been coming here for six years. I
will not say I have enjoyed every single minute of it and most
of the ferocity has come from Lindsay Hoyle, but we know it is
well-intended and he has been a great combatant, but I have enjoyed
it. Thank you very much for the work that your Committee has done
in helping us to do our work, even though you want to abolish
us.
Chairman: And you yourselves, it seems;
an admirable point of consensus on which to end. Thank you very
much indeed.
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