GUERNSEY POST has announced a half-year loss of £187,000. The utility had made a profit of £448,000 for the year ending September 2005.

‘The company is reporting an accounting loss before tax ‘of £26,000′ of £161,000 and consequently is not declaring a dividend,’ said chairman Dudley Jehan in his annual report.

Guernsey Post finance director Martin Johnson said inflationary measures – particularly Royal Mail charges, oil price increases and additional airfreight security measures – had added to costs over the six months ending 31 March.

The Office of Utility Regulation earlier this year agreed a new set of tariffs and bulk products, and has now been asked to sanction further rises.

Mr Jehan said the year ahead would continue to prove challenging.

‘As a regulated entity, dependent upon the cross-financial- year decisions of the OUR with regard to tariff changes and timing, the company cannot necessarily expect to make a profit in any one accounting period.’

He said the States pension scheme and its impact on Guernsey Post remained a significant business risk that management and unions would have to work together to respond to. Its employees are members of the States superannuation scheme – a defined-benefits pension funded by employer and employee contributions at rates determined periodically by actuarial advice and calculated to spread expected costs of benefits payable to employees over the period of their expected service.

The total amount of superannuation contributions for the six months from 1 October 2005 to 31 March 2006 was £355,061. Last year, it was £549,061.

Mr Jehan said the utility would have to respond to pressures from commercial competition in the non-regulated areas in Guernsey.

And he said its retail operation would have to respond to demands for greater efficiency while not losing its Bailiwick-wide service.