Postal and Courier Services (Hansard, 30 June 1992)

§ Mr. Archie Hamilton

The Defence Postal and Courier Services will be established as a defence support agency of the Ministry of Defence on I July 1992. The Defence Postal and Courier Services comprise the directorate of the defence postal and courier services, the postal and courier depot—which includes the postal training school and courier wing—and a group to co-ordinate functional tasking and specialist training of postal and courier services Territorial Army personnel. Together, they employ some 285 military personnel and 256 civilians.

The primary role of the Defence Postal and Courier Services is to provide postal and courier services for the safe and secure carriage of all official and personal mail and parcels for United Kingdom armed forces at home and overseas during periods of peace, international tension and war. The primary customers of the agency are service personnel, their dependants and defence establishments at home and overseas. The high professional standards of the Defence Postal and Courier Services will be maintained and agency status will provide the chief executive with new opportunities to improve the efficiency and value for money of his organisation and provide even better services to customers. Brigadier Michael Browne has been appointed as the agency's chief executive.

The chief executive has been set the following targets for 1992–93: 1. Taking account of the experience of Operation Granby. define by 31 December 1992 the core capability—the minimum manpower. equipment and training—to be maintained in peace to meet requirements in crisis and war. 2. Inaugurate service level agreements with service user representatives, other Government Departments and other major users of postal and courier services, by 31 March 1993. 3. Define key output and unit cost measures by 31 March 1993 in order to set targets for the movement of mail and courier items in future years. 4. Introduce management information systems to produce all necessary information including the identification of full costs of services, to support measures of output and unit cost and to meet the accounting requirements for agencies by 31 March 1993. 5. Increase the agency's efficiency by

a. achieving manpower savings of £1 million by bringing into full service automated letter sorting equipment.
b. making further efficiency enhancements to the value of £100,000 (1 per cent. of cash budget).

6. Attract receipts in 1992–93 of £2.5 million which will represent an increase in a declining market.