GUERNSEY POST must face increased competition, says the Office of Utility Regulation.
But the decision released today is not as bad for the States’ utility as had been feared after the regulator made substantial changes to ‘strike a balance’ between Guernsey Post’s concerns and looking after bulk mailers and other customers.
From April, Guernsey Post will see its monopoly on all items costing less than £1.35 to post drop to cover just letters and large letters under £1. Packages will now be open to full competition.
‘I think we have listened both to what Guernsey Post were saying but also to what bulk mailers were saying,’ said OUR director-general John Curran (pictured).
In its October proposal, the regulator had wanted to drop GPL’s monopoly to a reserved area of 65p with no specification of mail types. Guernsey Post said at the time that would cripple it, insisting extra competition could mean the States subsidising a loss-making utility. Chief executive Gordon Steele now says the utility could still lose a lot of revenue.
‘The regulator has made substantial changes, but this is still removal of the reserved area by stealth,’ he said. ‘This is very serious and we are carefully considering our position and next steps.’
The only appeal route currently open to it is through the courts, but some States members have said they might challenge the regulator’s right to make such decisions.
Bulk mailers had always welcomed the idea of more competition, with Healthspan founder Derek Coates saying during the consultation that the utility did not understand the industry.
Mr Curran said the decision to allow full competition on packages while maintaining Guernsey Post’s reserved area at a higher level offered a balance.
‘We have to ensure the postal markets works well for all,’ he said. ‘Bulk mail is such an important part of the economy and making sure Guernsey is competitive for them is vital. But equally, we have an obligation to make sure the postal service is viable.
‘We are satisfied we have struck a reasonable balance. For example, the bulk mailers would have wanted there to be no reserved area at all whereas Guernsey Post would probably prefer a larger one.’
The OUR has also told Guernsey Post that it must reduce costs by £800,000 in the next year. ‘In the draft decision, we highlighted that overtime and overheads had doubled,’ Mr Curran said. ‘We thought there was scope to make savings there and we are still of that view.’
Mr Curran said the regulator had backed Guernsey Post’s request to increase the price of posting to the UK by 2p to 45p, going back on its original decision that it remain the same. The OUR also confirmed its decision to move into a system of pricing in proportion – items charged by size as well as weight.
Crucial industry Page 2
Opinion Page 28
Article posted on 23rd December, 2009 - 2.30pm
34 Article Comments
Does the OUR have any competition?
Bet it doesn`t.
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Can’t say I understand these regulator decisions.
So why make the change, it always seems like forcing change for change sake.
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It is sad that, in the public interest, the Post Office needs to be nudged towards being cost effective.
Arguably it was so when run as a States department.
After commercialisation we can remember the Christmas disaster, leading to changes in the top management team. The new team sought to prevent a recurrence of the disaster by increasing the number of postal staff quite outrageously.
While understandable it was the wrong solution and has, in recent years, been corrected to some extent.
Over the years, however, the number of management staff has also increased unduly. That is one thing that needs to be corrected.
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How big is our island?
For some things for efficiency and service then a monopoly is a good thing…the post office is one of them.
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The recent decision by the OUR to reduce the reserved area for Guernsey post will I believe have serious ramifications for the future ability of this local company to trade profitably, remembering that this is a company wholly owned by the people we purport to represent. The OUR is treating Guernsey like some large jurisdiction that can stand having its vital services picked off by large predators, not a tiny island that needs to protect these essential services from those circling waiting to pounce on the only profitable bits of GP. The definition of a predator is “someone who plunders and destroys, a person, group, company or state that steals from others or destroys others for gain,” an apt description I would suggest at what is being proposed.
You may believe that this is none of our business and that politicians should keep out of the regulatory process. Well in the main I would agree with that principle, except that is when the regulator behaves in such a reckless manner that their actions threatens the very financial future of an important publicly owned company because so called “competition” drives it to debt, which could very well mean that the States Treasury would have to bail out. That is what makes it our business.
Not all competition is good for Guernsey and we don’t appear to need any help from those outside the island to destroy what we have built up, it seems that over the last few years we are hell bent on destroying Guernsey’s unique public service structure from the inside. What we have works for us, it may not be perfect but in my view it isn’t broke and it doesn’t need fixing.
The UK Royal Mail was destroyed by enforced competition by the ever insidious European Union directives; companies like TNT, HDL, Jersey and Deutsche Post together with others moved in and creamed off the profitable parcel business leaving RM with the unprofitable parts of delivering letters to small villages the length and breath of the country. (I have attached an article making this point.)
The OUR are now advocating we do the same here and to that I could never agree. We are, as a community prepared to sacrifice a little efficiency for a special service. To allow competitors to come into our postal market, who will cherry pick the profitable parts of the business leaving the unprofitable bits for islanders to live with is not a sensible way forward and unless the OUR can give us as elected representatives of the people a cast iron guarantee that GP will grow and prosper as a result of these recommendations, then I simply cannot support them. If the OUR have got it wrong it will be too late to try and shove all the pieces back together, it would in my view be gamble of such folly that GP would never recover.
The abolition of the reserved area is a decision that in my view can only be made by the States of Deliberation, with any debate being led by T&R who hold the shares of Guernsey Post on behalf of the people of Guernsey. John Curran said last night on TV that he was “hoping” GP could remain profitable, I don’t think we can leave it to hope, do you?
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I bet VAT avoider and seller of quack remedys formally by Guernsey Post, wont be offering to run the rest of the Guernsey Post on these terms.Once more OUR has failed the comunity,to profit a minority .
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PC: I agree, monopoly can be good here. As I indicated above, however, the direction taken by the management is one of self-interest rather than public interest, and that is intolerable.
A regrettable aspect is that it is difficult to see how the loss of monopoly can be reversed. Except possibly by some kind of merger of GPL with the private companies.
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The rich joke that Dave Jones should get sooner or later is that the Post Office was commercialised by the States. And that is exactly what is wrong: the Post Office is behaving like one kind of commercial enterprise, getting fat and lazy.
The real solution is to de-commercialise it. Ideally, perhaps, some sort of hybrid department/enterprise could be devised.
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step forward….Suez Corp
Sewage next.
and coffee bars.
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Well said DJ I hope you States members can do something about it, how much more of Guernsey is going to be taken away from us. It just so happens a UK company is waiting to dive in and run a company over here in competition with Guernsey Post. I bet they are, like bees around a honeypot. If it ain’t broke dont fix it.
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Dave Jones
Absolutely spot on with your comments. We are an island of 62000 people and 21 square miles. We need a reliable and value-for-money postal service, which is what we had for many years. We simply aren’t big enough to have competition on the service. In fact, we are more likely to have no service at all as operators are bound to lose money competing. All we need is regulation to stop islanders being fleeced by the one operator. Ditto mobile telephone services although that market is probably big enough for two operators to compete in, but not as many as three or four who are simply diluting each others’ profits to the point where none of them will think it worthwhile.
We don’t need an OUR for a postal service and the States has the power to remove those powers if it so chooses.
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So why can the OUR have such say, can their decision be back tracked.
Why does there need to be change.
I can not see a sustainable reason for it, only a ‘greed’ sighted change. Greed takes many forms, not always money.
Profit for a few does not make a good service for all or right for an Island community.
I suspect that the long term impact of this decsions will completely be at odds with the statement on the OUR website under… ‘The strategic aims of the OUR are’. But only time will tell how big a mistake this decision will be.
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“Not all competition is good for Guernsey and we don’t appear to need any help from those outside the island to destroy what we have built up”
Hello? Most of the top management are UK contractors. They got rid of the local talent and empolyed their own mates!!
Do the research daffyd, before spouting ya usual rhetoric.
As for your not so subtle pop at Curran as an Irishman, you got front London boy!!
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Reading the comments it,s clear that someone needs to tell the states to wind up the O,U,R an expensive and uneeded office, oh, but we had a chance to do that a few weeks ago and its still there, whats next looking for a site for a new electricity board , or new gas provider ??as mentioned this is guernsey not a huge area of a country where perhaps competition is not only healthy but feasible ,as it is we have two too many phone providers ,there was nothing wrong with the first one we had ,and if our government had any credibility at all, all that would need to be done is for them to urge these businesses to knuckle under or out , but its not about providing a service, its about having a brass plaque on a wall in the c.i through which billions of dollars can be passed ,more providers means more people to run them ,more immigrant families draining the services zzzzzzzzzz ,dont know why i bother ,they heard all this before and still they keep going, any way the office of useless regulation appeared very ,very quickly a few years ago lets see if guernsey can do yet another world first and get rid of it even quicker ,it serves no other purpose than an expensive way of winding people up
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So many posters showing the common sense that is missing from the OUR.
Five years ago it was clear that opening the more profitable bits of Guernsey Post would simply provide extra profit to those competitors, whilst leaving the owners of Guernsey Post, the taxpayer with a rump business, blighted by increasing losses.
An excellent post by Dave Jones who rightly warns of the perils and experiences elsewhere and the uninspiring comment of John Curran that he hopes Guernsey Post will be profitable.
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As is, Guernsey Post makes a profit for the Guernsey taxpayer. Sell the best bits and the remainder will make a loss, whilst someone else will profit from the best bits. Economic stupidity in the name of regulation.
And double up on delivery vans on our roads?
There is room for some cost cutting “as is”, but otherwise leave well alone.
And what happens in Alderney and Sark?
How come Mr Curran has so much power?
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Guern abroad, you will find the reasoning at: http://www.regutil.gg/docs/OUR0921.pdf
Reading Dave Jones’ comments, it is not clear if he has read any of the OUR documents because many of his questions are answered therein.
In a competitive world GPL would be obliged to cut its costs – both administration and workforce to match other postal operators. It is quite likely that their workforces would not be unionised and would not be bound by traditional work practices. Because GPL has no competition we (postal users) rely on the OUR to use its access to information that neither DJ nor the public can see, to force that ‘matching’ activity. Of course it hurts, but then so does competition in business.
In the case of GPL, the OUR is quite right to criticise the spending of £850,000 on a banking blind alley and the extremely high increases in director’s fees and administration costs. No doubt the OUR will be equally critical of the £50,000+ spent on public relations fighting the OUR consultation process. Any States department doing that would lose its minister!
GPL has also been negligent in securing its core activities such as collecting mail from companies and delivering box number post, several businesses have sprung-up recently do do the service. Additionally GPL has failed, despite having skilled staff, equipment and machinery, to secure onward delivery for internet suppliers like Amazon. Once again a number of businesses have been established in Guernsey to carry out the work.
Trying to find new avenues of business for its small number of shops has appeared to dominate its activities at great cost and to no avail.
I join the bulk mailers in saying well done OUR.
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Its ok for the bloke from the O.U.R to make these decisions on his Open Market salary & house perhaps he should spend a day with a postie to see what they do
The sooner this blokes housing license runs out the better, what next two water companies, two electric companies, two fire brigades, THIS IS GUERNSEY NOT THE UK.
Step forward the deputies to scrap this stupid decision
The best thing the States could do is scrap the O.U.R
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Could not agree with you more Dave Jones.
Why have we still got this OUR, which costs £850,000 per year? Lets get rid of it and dump them.
The good old days was when we had States Committee with an accountant on it looking after our interests.
The only change to this was,to commercialise it with a good Manager in charge.
The people who want changes are the same ones, who wanted zero-10, so they pay no taxes and they use the no vat areas like Guernsey.
What will they want next, paid by the taxpayer to sent bulk mail out of the Island?
If this OUR recommendation is carried out, we could end up with a reduced service.
For example the Post Office might cut out a lot of the Western Parishes deliveries and collections.
We may have to go to the nearest Local Post Office to send our mail and collect it.
There are also questions to be asked of the Management of the Guernsey Post.
Why did they spend £850,000 on looking at setting up a bank, when that would not be allowed?
Why have a manager who spends most his time out of the island and only has a flat here?
The whole expenditure, should be looked at and also why more local based people are not employed in management?
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We are an island with 62000 folk
the same size as a large council housing estate in the midlands
not some international world power, lets get ourselves into some kind of perspective here, we have more high flying politicians and departments than you can shake a stick at
why so much regulation ?
why have an our ?
why not get rid and save money ?
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I believe the Guernsey Post is good value for money, and deliveries are really very quick! Perhaps charging less on parcels would be better.
I don’t think DHL are going to steal too much of GPs parcels, as they charge a diamond for each small packet sent!
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David Cranch
I voted against commercialisation as there was never anything in it for the Guernsey people except higher charges and reduced service. Here is part of my speech.
There is little doubt amongst the public and indeed some Guernsey politicians that the commercialisation of the States utilities has not been a roaring success, there is also no doubt in my mind that the public were seriously misled by assurances given at the time that commercialisation would result in improved and more cost effective services to the public. My good friend the Treasury Minister said yesterday that commercialisation is a “new model” How naive we were, Good grief we didn’t have to look further than the UK to see the old model and what was in store for our people if we went down this road
Not only were they misled about the cost of regulation 6 times the original cost. The Guernsey people were promised more choice, more efficiency and more accountability, which in turn would drive down prices and offer a better service for the benefit of all those in our community.
The fact is, the whole process has been a disaster, in terms of lower prices and better services, all these promises have vanished on the wind.
All of a sudden we caught the British disease of reducing everything to the sort of bog standard levels of the UK utility companies, a country that has managed to destroy public confidence in its utilities and led to outright hostility at the salaries of the fat cat bosses and the obscene profits made by the utility companies. While people queue up at standpipes or watch their water, gas and electricity prices rise month on month.
I am not suggesting that will happen here but we are certainly on the right road as we constantly listen to the advice from people outside the island.
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Roy Bisson
Spot on with your comments.
The people clamouring for the salvation of Guernsey Post must not be aware of the spectacularly bad job they are doing (as the OUR have highlighted).
They say they are increasing charges significantly for bulk mailers which would nip in the bud what is currently a growth industry in Guernsey.
Yet the people will happily complain that we are over reliant on the finance industry, yet support the post office who are trying to disguise poor management by increasing charges which will eventually drive these bulk mailers away.
I’m not sure whether competition is the best solution however. What is needed is a thorough overhaul of the management structure and a change in strategic focus.
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The Man
Agreed that Guernsey Post has not been blessed with the best of management since the decision to commercialise the service.
Prior to commercialisation GP was a successful if unspectatcular performer that served Guernsey.
The introduction of the tranche of former GPO staff with their ideals and UK post attitudes circa 2002, the weak GP Consumer Council and the constant bickering with OUR was hardly the prescription for success.
What a shambles.
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Wise words, Dave Jones.
But drowned out by the Opinion column in today’s Press. It is advocating a Thatcherite commercialisation of pretty well everything.
While I have never been a huge admirer of either Deputies or the Civil Service, their record of running the utilities was (a)tolerably good (b) capable of incremental improvement, and (c) achieved without generating fat cats.
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Well, since no one has jumped on my slip, let me correct it.
The Press is advocating wholesale privatisation of ’state assets’.
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Indeed, David Cranch.
Why is the GP advocating a failed system of corporate governance to run essential public services? I thought it was a ‘voice of the people’?
Privatisation in a society as small as ours can only work sustainably if run by the people that use it, locals. Otherwise our needs will be determined not by elected democracy, but by the bottom line of companies that owe their ‘worth’ through debts to companies that do not know their own ‘worth’, as determined by a system that sets the formulae and oversees adherence to those formulae, a system owned by those that have proven to be at the very heart of a global financial disaster, the very reason we are talking about slashing public expenditure.
How far are we talking about here, with this privatisation? Healthcare like in the US, where getting run over means you have to lose everything if you gambled on signinig a form that the odds of being run over were slim, as explained by a salesman?
Waste disposal? At what stage does the private company have accountability over its deficiencies, having signed some sort of vague service level agreement ensuring adherence to a rapidly obselescing set of parameters?
When Guernsey Post can no longer be subsidised because it loses bulk business due to a promotion of international tax avoiding fulfillment companies and so trapping it within EU regulations, folds, who takes up the local postal service for letters?
I won’t go on. Good, you may say, but unless local people are prepared to co-op their skillsets and form infrastructure that can deliver the quality of material service that our sudden wealth has given us, then we will be in no position to moan when the European multinats own our nuts and bolts. Multinats run purely with backing from the industry and ideology we promote to the extent that has caused the financial mess we are in now.
The ones calling for privatisation are the ones who follow the beliefs of those that gambled and lost and forgot and are ignorant about the jobs they do and have cost the global economy trillions and rising. That desperate greed is now directly having an impact on the way we treat each other as people.
We daren’t touch the ‘rainy day’ glittering mare’s nest, but we can say “oh, they’re just old people, or poor people, or people that went to THAT school, it doesn’t matter”.
and the attitude is increasing as the polar divide caused by these beliefs widen.
We want to be a global player, “it’s good”, they say. Yet we’ll lose control of the fundamentals.
We could be within the EU and still have that operational democratic function because we are so small. Competition and ‘Code of Conduct’ rules would not apply if we had a sustainable vision for our children and theirs. If you do not care about being ’sold out’ then steady that rudder, but if you bang a nationalistic drum, like some prominent voices in the Press, the States and the rarefied and mysterious power-broker set, then the argument FOR the status quo and AGAINST its causality is either gross, worse; vulgar self interest, or plain ignorant short termism.
Are these the characteristics taught to our children within our education system? Is that what some folk go to church to hear? Are they the earnest conversations people have in the street about such-and-such?
Nobody cares.
I see town was full to the brim today. Hooray!
We can replace it all next year. It would be interesting to see who owns the retailers that decided to cash in on marketed ’sales’, unlike the any other ’sales’ that happen every other week.
Ah well. If you don’t question the means, you get the ends given to you. Scrag ends.
Ends which will provide fodder to moan about for the general public, but asking your parish Deputy will be futile. If you then makes a fuss, perhaps organise a well-supported public campaign about a service for the public being mismanaged or corrupt or just plain rubbish, the Law will be against you and you can expect the vilest life ruining reaction, a mere flick of the wrist for them, a matter of life or death, maybe, for the campaigners.
The States are there to serve as democratically elected representatives. Understand what it is they are representing.
Is it viable to agree with a wholesale public asset sale when every action in every country at any time provides evidence to the contrary. Debt is preferable, if we sell that debt to the right people.
I don’t have faith.
If this is not a rainy ‘day’, these next few years, then I question the validity of the claim that this ‘fund’ exists in any meaningful form.
Are there published investment strategies?
Meanwhile, the poor get poorer and iller and less educated and more disenfranchised….private security firms become the norm….etc etc etc
Happy New Year.
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I have to say that I really do struggle to see what benefit this competition would bring to the island.
The post is an essential service. It needs to be run well but in a community the size of ours, is competition on the most profitable parts of the service actually going to improve the service in its entirety? I have grave doubts.
Oversight of our utilities is required in order to ensure that they deliver us a good service and good value for money. But if the OUR has identified faults, surely the better solution (at least as the starting point) is to improve the Guernsey Post management, or pricing structure, or whatever is not working well. The OUR feels that competition will improve matters. It could just as easily destroy the commununity service that the Post provides.
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TL
OUR is a business in its own right.
The fear is that its own need to self perpetuate itself, might lead to decisions that, as you say, fiddle with data, rather than deal with the basic problems of managing an essential strategic business.
Far to simple a solution for OUR. It seems to believe the more complex the presentation of the problem the better it is seen to be performing.
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Roy Bisson
You need to wake up and smell the coffee.
The island has a population of 60k only – we do not need competition on the scale the OUR suggests.
The OUR document is way over the head of most people and is deliberately done like that so people wont read it, as it is a political document.
The figures in that document are selective and generally wrong.
Post volumes are declining at the rate of 12-16% per year, and thus GPL has to do something to diversify or it will have little business to service.
The Money spent on the banking option was under the guidance & agreement of its shareholder, and even if it has to be done with a partnering bank it will still help GPL diversify and return a profit.
This is what prudent businesses in the face of future decling trade, isnt it hey Mr Bisson?
As with any business, there are improvements to be made and these are ongoing.
That said why we have to waste hundreds of thousands of pounds on an non-beneficial regulater, who has caused Guernsey nothing but antagonism & strife with all his crazy decisions is beyond anyone with common sense – think of the 3G farce, the number of new telephone masts, the losses at Guernsey Electricity etc.
Why dont you concentrate on getting rid of the States Pension scheme, rather than commenting on things you clearly know little about Mr bisson?
And GPL has retained most of its core service, especially as it has its USO which demands that it does. Yes there is some competition for a small part of the delivery service for some companies, though this is miniscule compared to the rest of the core service.
And yes the £50k spent on PR for GPL in defending its position was a waste of money, though forced on GPL by the ridiculous imposition by the OUR, and still it does not even come near to the £200K, yes £200k spent by the OUR on advisors and consultants in just 1 year.
Why does the OUR need extra specialists when it is supposed to be full of them already??!!
As for Mr Coates and the other bulk mailers – they provide employment for only a few Guernsey people. Most of the employees packing are low paid foreign workers who save their cash and take it off island. The profits made at the expense of these bulk mailers goes into a few pockets only and does not benefit the general population. As for Mr Coastes looking to move off island; He has been looking for an excuse to move some of his business elsewhere for a number of years. Why does he need to do this if he is so committed to the people of Guernsey. Sadly it is because he is so committed to his bank balance only!
Further there is an argument that we would have a better relationship with the UK and indeed Europe if these bulk mailers weren’t here, avoiding the need to pay VAT.
This has long been a source of antagonism with the UK.
In conclusion, we cannot let OUR and misguided politicians and individuals, make anymore idiotic decisions for which the Guersney people carry the financial fallout.
We need some common sense in the states and in the island now, before anymore money is wasted and only a few rich kids glean any benefit.
Syd
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No one seems to be noting that while of course the bulk mailers bring revenue to the island their position was made clear by Derek Coates when he stated that he would move his business elsewhere if a competitive service was not available in Guernsey, I’m sure his statement bears some truth for the other BMs in Guernsey.
So, the OUR can make a decision that will benefit a small number of companies who it seems have very little alliegence to Guernsey and would be gone in a flash should it suit them. Of course the UK government could also close the deminimus VAT threshold which would drive the BMs away to other areas and Guernsey would be left with a ruined postal service.
The OUR seems to have a funny idea of competition too; In business, competition will usually level out and companies find ways to compete with others, In the OUR model GPL must compete with others with one hand tied behind its’ back because the OUR also controls other aspects of GPLs business the competitors will not have to adhere to, how can that work fairly?
It would also be easy to sit down and say it’s all ok in June or July when nothing seems to have happened to GPL, the sort of damage the OURs decision could cause may take a number of years to show, one day we’ll hear the words; ah do you remember the post office at St Peters and St Martins and the Bridge, do you remember when the postman came everyday..
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Dave Jones has commented that we need a value for money Guernsey Post. We currently don’t have that. Anyone who has anything to do with Guernsey Post on a day to day commercial basis realises this. There is no reason why Guernsey Post should lose any of it’s business, so long as it gets into the real commercial world, where the rest of us have to live. Any potential alternative to Guernsey Post has to do that, paying the commercial rate for labour, and not what is paid to Guernsey Post workers – they do a good job, but so they should for what they are paid!!
If other carriers can potentially do it cheaper, then Guernsey Post can do the same, by reducing their costs, like the rest of us have to do. It’s time Guernsey Post stopped pampering the unions, stopped paying extra to it’s workers for work which should be part of a normal days work.
I would prefer Guernsey Post to keep the business, and they have the potential to do just that – but do they have the will to take the cuts which will achieve it, and keep them profitable? – unfortunately I don’t think so.
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Perhaps if the (mostly imported) senior management at Guernsey Post hadn’t decided to pay itself and it’s imported ‘experts’ thousands upon thousands of pounds, invest even more in a project that went nowhere, (that could have – SHOULD have – been investigated thoroughly and easily BEFORE they spent the money) and hadn’t continued to bow down to their greedy Union, by giving into their every whim and forking out so much ‘overtime’ that the average postie’s wage is akin to a qualified professional (there’s no skills or years of study required to have a vague sense of direction and the ability to peddle a bike, so they darned well SHOULD be good for the kings ransom they take home each week), then they wouldn’t be facing the wrath of the OUR (who, regretfully, are an equal waste of overpaid, imported space).
Guernsey Post have no one to blame except it’s management, and despite the musings of certain States members, it is the States that equally should take responsibility for the tail (namely, the OUR) that THEY decided to set up, and that now firmly wags the dog.
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What Syd (I presume some official of GPL) and GregR fail to appreciate is the value to Guernsey of the fulfillment industry. Mostly owned by Guernsey resident paying local tax, it is rapidly becoming a fully fledged 2nd leg of our economy. Losing it when we are already facing a financial deficit is not a good idea. Losing it to Jersey is even worse!
Syd would have us believe that postal business is waning by 12 to 16% – that is not my experience, nor that of postmen. Read “Dear Granny Smith: A Letter from your Postman”. Particularly in Guernsey, mail order is blooming (inwards that is) and GPL get paid for that function.
Syd says that the ‘banking’ investigation was under the guidance of the shareholder – well the shareholder had no idea such a ’search’ was going to cost over £1m (including 2009 spending). Spending all its time on trying to find a function for its half dozen shops was not a good idea, particularly as it meant taking its eye off core business – the collection and delivery of mail, packages and freight.
Finally Syd, the OUR’s intervention with Guernsey Electricity was necessary because GEL wished to charge its customers even more when it already had a cash horde of £16m. OUR said ‘give it back to your customers over a 3 year period.’ That will give book deficits over those years as the cash pile is reduced to a more appropriate figure.
The OUR has been a great boon to islanders, saving each family thousands. Its very small staff (four I think) has to bring in expertise from time to time, but £200k for a GPL investigation is peanuts compared with GPL’s Directors fees!
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