Mr. Kingasked the Secretary of State for Industry whether he will supply the latest figures available, and figures for each of the years since 1969, of the 651W number of postal employees in the Post Office, the number of letters handled and the ratio of letters per employee expressed as an index number.
1969–70 1970–71 1971–72 1972–73 1973–74 1974–75 Letters and parcels† (millions) 11,408 10,681 10,739 10,984 11,205 11,078 Mails operations staff*† 126,111 125,526 124,654 123,748 121,408 127,121 Index of letters and parcels handled per mails operations employee (1969−70 = 100) 100 92 94 96 100 95 Source: Post Office Report and Accounts.
* Excluding Headquarters staff.
† It is not possible to distinguish between staff handling letters and staff handling parcels.
Notes:
- (a) Mail volume statistics are based partly on sampling procedures and relate to the whole year in question.
- (b) Staff figures relate to a fixed end-year date.
- (c) Hours worked (including overtime), vary from year to year.
§ Mr. Tom Kingasked the Secretary of State for Industry how much supplementary depreciation was charged to bring the annual depreciation charge into line with depreciation on replacement costs for the post services, for telecommunications and for the Post Office as a whole in 1974–75; and what additional charges would be necessary to adjust the supplementary charges in previous years for the subsequent changes in price levels.
§ Mr. Gregor MackenzieThe supplementary depreciation allowed for 1974–75 is quoted in the Post Office Report and Accounts and the figures are as follows:
Turning to the second part of this question, the Post Office tells me that pending full study of current cost accounting, it could not be answered without disproportionate effort.
£m Posts 5.8 Telecommunications 124.3 Total 130.2