Whistl have won the first Northern Ireland Government postal contract following a competitive process run by the Department of Finance’s Central Procurement Directorate (CPD).
The contract, lasting up to five years, covers a wide number of government and public sector bodies including those in, Education, Health, Finance, Colleges and Transport. It will see Whistl collect, sort and transport mail to Royal Mail for doorstep delivery.
As a result of the win, Whistl will be investing in their Hightown Industrial Estate depot in terms of operational staff and also drivers who will collect mail from across the whole of Northern Ireland and bring it to the depot for processing. 10 new jobs are expected to be created.
We know that many Tamebay readers would dearly love to see an alternative provider to Royal Mail who, although privatised, still look like a monopoly to the average SME online retailer. Whistl and other downstream mail providers aren’t up to the task however. Competition would be healthy for both price and service, but while alternatives continue to reply on Royal Mail for the last mile delivery their service, no matter how good, isn’t quite on a par with Royal Mails.
Perhaps there’s an argument for the last mile delivery to be spun off from Royal Mail in a similar way to Openreach being split from BT. Then what was Royal Mail would simply be a collection operation in the same way that Whistl et al operate and everyone would be on an equal footing.
