Another autumn postage rate increase on 7 October 2024 - will there be two a year in future?

Once again Royal Mail chose to announce new postage rates while we were away, so by now most of the headline news is well known.  

Royal Mail Press Release extract 6 September 2024

From 7 October 2024, the price of First Class stamps will increase to £1.65 and the price of Second Class stamps will remain unchanged at 85p.

Royal Mail has sought to keep price increases as low as possible in the face of declining letter volumes, inflationary pressures and the costs associated with maintaining the Universal Service.
The new price of First and Second Class stamps remain below European average prices of £1.73 for First Class and £1.33 for Second Class.

Letter volumes have fallen from 20 billion in 2004/5 to around 6.7 billion a year in 2023/4. As a result, the average household now receives just four letters per week, compared to 14 per week in 2004/5. The number of addresses Royal Mail must deliver to has risen by four million in the same period meaning the cost of each delivery continues to rise.

At the same time the opportunity has been taken to increase the basic airmail rate, which is unaffected by the above factors.

The new rate chart can be downloaded here.  New prices in bold, unchanged rates in italics.  The 1st class £3.50 rate now covers Large Letters over 100g to 750g.

	1st		2nd
Letter	1.65	1.35	0.85	0.85
Large Letter – 100g	2.60	2.10	1.55	1.55
- 250g	3.50	2.90	2.10	2.10
- 500g	3.50	3.50	2.50	2.50
- 750g	3.50	3.50	2.70	2.70
Small Parcel 2kg	4.79	4.59	3.75	3.69
Medium Parcel 2kg	6.99	6.69	6.15	5.89
- 10kg	8.69	8.39	7.65	7.39
- 20kg	13.19	12.49	11.55	10.99

Special Delivery rates are also increased.  The 100g rate rises by 40p from £7.95 to £8.35, the 500g rate by 40p to £9.35. 

UK Tracked rates see minor increases.  The basic 1st class Large Letter rate is raised by 10p to £3.60, the Small Parcel rate by 20p to £4.99.  The 2nd class rates by 10p to £2.80, the Small Parcel by 6p to £3.95. 

UK Signed rates rise broadly in line with the basic letter rates.

International rates.   The basic letter rates are increased, but not the Large Letter and Parcel rates.  The airmail rate is increased from £2.50 to £2.80, and the surface rate from £2.20 to £2.60.  Premium services - International Tracked, Signed, and Tracked & Signed all see changes.

Unlike last April, when the new airmail stamp was issued after the rate increased, the new £2.80 stamp will be issued on 1 October.  However, there may be problems obtaining it in Post Offices until the day of the increase (7 October).  

Royal Mail's advice to dealers was "The new £2.80 rate will be live and available in Post Offices from Monday 7th October, the date that the new Tariff comes into force", so read what you will into that.

UPDATE:  I confirmed in Dereham Crown Office this morning that the £2.80 was available to sell; the Horizon system has that and the presentation pack already available.

As usual the 39 x 30 mm self-adhesive stamps are printed by Cartor Security Printers in sheets of 25, and a presentation pack has been produced.

£2.80 slate-blue King Charles III definitive stamp issued for
airmail letters and cards worldwide 1 October 2024

UPDATE: An interesting point has been raised in the Comments, that the new 1st class rate is higher than the 2nd class Large Letter rate of £1.55 as this is unchanged.    This means that a 1st class commemorative or current definitive can be used to send a Large Letter (up to 100g) at 2nd class.

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September Slogan Postmarks and other interesting postal markings etc

As might have been expected new slogan postmarks - absent in August - made a return in September.  Several readers sent examples and if I fail to acknowledge your contribution, please accept my apologies now.

The default British Heart Foundation slogan continued for the first week - thanks to KD for this example from Bristol Mail Centre dated 06/09/2024 and the other format from Inverness dated 05-09-2024.

British Heart Foundation slogan from Inverness Mail Centre 05-09-2024

British Heart Foundation slogan from BA,BS,GL,TA (Bristol) Mail Centre 06/09/2024

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The first new slogan marked Air Ambulances Week (9-15 September 2024).  (Two different organisations' wesbites: Air Ambulances UK and The Air Ambulance Service which seems a bit odd.)

First used on Saturday 7 September for delivery on 9th (thanks AB for a N&W Yorkshire example). few of the impressions received have been clear, sadly, the one from Glasgow Mail Centre 11-09-2024 being the best by a country mile (thanks to JF).

AIR AMBULANCES UK

Air Ambulance Week
September 9th - 15th

Air Ambulances UK slogan, Glasgow Mail Centre 11-09-2024

Air Ambulances UK slogan, North & West Yorkshire 13/09/2024

Other examples from South East Anglia on 10th (RW), Croydon (MM & KD), and a particularly poor one from Chester & N Wales (KD)

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This was followed by another in aid of the Greetings Card Industry, marking Thinking of You Week which this year ran from 16th - 22nd September.

The slogan repeats the format from previous years.

Send A Card
Deliver A Smile for
Thinking of You Week
16th-22nd September 2024

MM provided an example from North & West Yorkshire on (Saturday) 14/09/2024 for delivery on 16th, and KD sent the same format from Manchester dated 17/09/2024.

Thinking of You Week slogan used at North & West Yorkshire 14/09/2024

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It seems unlikely that there will be any more?

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Other postmarks, postal markings etc.

Our Canadian correspondent (SS) has sent a selection of postmarks including a second counter date stamp from Littlehampton's Wick News, first reported in February.  That one had the B ident, and this one is the A, dated 20 SE 24.

Wick News A counter date stamp, 20 SE 24.

SS also sent an image of a cover postmarked with the  HEATON MOOR STOCKPORT E counter date stamp from 30 AU 22

Heaton Moor Stockport E cds 30 AU 22

The branch has been in the same location for some years but comparison of Google streetview in 2023 with 2012 shows the changing face of the high street as companies reinvent their appearance with not only the Post Office, but also The Plough and the Co-op supermarket having changed.

Heaton Moor Post Office 2015 (top) and 2023 (Google Streetview)

We also have two packet stamps, Sheffield Mail Centre of 09 SEP 2021 from SS, and Enquiry Office Norwich 27 SEP 2024 from JH who asks whether it is normal to have postmarks at the EO.  

At one stage one of Norwich's two EOs housed a Post and Go machine which enabled stamps to be sold without large stocks of sheets being held behind the counter and sold for cash.  The idea was also that Customs and other penalty charges could be made through the machines but I don't think this ever worked in practice.)  The EO also accepted mail - predominently from businesses which also collected their mail from PO Boxes - and cancelled the stamps. 

Sheffield Mail Centre S9 2XX packet stamp 09 SEP 2021

Enquiry Office Norwich NR? 1AA packet stamp 27 SEP 2024

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Postboxes, post offices, mailvans

Our holiday in Ireland concentrated on enjoying the views, eating out, and relaxing.  Nonetheless I felt compelled to take some photos related to the postal system.  Here are a few postboxes.  It took a while to get used to seeing them: Irish streets are so colourful that the green boxes do not stand out quite as much as our red ones do.  And I don't think I saw any pillar boxes, although many exist in the cities, and there is a Penfold in Skibereen which I missed through not knowing about it until we had left the area.

The smart but tinny wall boxes stand out quite well, this one from Union Hall, a small fishing village in Co. Cork. 

An Post wall mounted box in Union Hall, Co Cork September 2024

This one in Goleen, on the Mizen Head peninsula in Co. Cork was not as well cared for.

An Post wall mounted box at Goleen, Co Cork, September 2024.

A good - and unexpected - find, was this wall-encased box surrounded by ivy in Co. Donegal.  It's on the border of the townlands of Mullanmore and Buncroobog, east of Glenties.  Much repainted it is difficult to see the shape of the harp, but the SE letters are clear, dating this to the 1922-24 period. These are said to be rare but a few are pictured on the web which also have the E R cypher at the very top (hidden by the ivy in this picture).

An Post Edward VII wallbox with door adapted to show the Saor Stat Eireann logo; dating from the 1920 this one is east of Glenties, Co. Galway in Buncroobog.

Lastly, this Victorian wall box is at The Glen Tavern or Dinny's in Co Donegal.  This is a house, which also contains a small shop, and a much larger public bar, where music is frequently played, and a good pint is served!

An Post Victorian wallbox in the Glen Tavern, Greenans Townland, Co Donegal.

The Glen Tavern.

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That's all on postmarks etc for this month. October should bring some more slogans if only to start the Movember campaign rolling.

 

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Did pre-Horizon system Capture wrong data, bankrupting postmasters? Fujitsu CEO slaps down POL over new cases.

I know this isn't on the list in my previous post but it's timely and brings attention back to the Post Office Ltd failings, and the unchanged culture.

Two reports, one about the computer system used at PO branches before Horizon was introduced, and the other about Fujitsu's reaction to POL asking for a witness statement and evidence this year for a further prosecution.  A third report covers continuing waste on NBIT, delays to which mean that Horizon will keep being used.

Report 1

In the week after Sir Alan Bates received his knighthood at Windsor Castle, Computer Weekly reveals failings similar to those in the Horizon case with its predecessor, Capture.  Capture was a PC-based accounting system, referred to as 'a glorified spreadsheet'.  There was no centralisation of data, and as with Horizon, too little training if any.

Here's the Computer Weekly article by Karl Flinders (links are to CW and WhatDoTheyKnow websites).

Post Office dramatically increased the number of investigations into subpostmasters after Capture Software was introduced

A change in Post Office behaviour after it introduced software to computerise branch accounts in 1993 mirrors an increase in prosecutions six years later, when the controversial Horizon system was introduced.

Lives were destroyed as the Post Office blamed subpostmasters for unexplained accounting shortfalls that only existed on the error-prone Horizon accounting system used in branches. Former users of Horizon predecessor, Capture, have been campaigning since January when ITV’s dramatisation of the Post Office scandal revealed parallels to problems they experienced.

Data on Post Office prosecutions has revealed worrying similarities to how the Post Office treated Horizon and Capture users who suffered unexplained losses.

According to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, in the six years before Capture was introduced by the Post Office to automate manual processes, fewer than five subpostmasters were investigated over account shortfalls in four of the years, seven investigations were carried out in 1992, and 11 investigations took place in 1993. But in the following six years, the number of investigations increased dramatically to an average of 191 a year, reaching 378 in 1998.

This mirrors a dramatic change that followed the introduction of the Horizon system to branches in 1999, in relation to the number of subpostmasters convicted of financial crimes. According to a separate FOI request from 2020, in the seven years between 1991 and the year before Horizon’s introduction, an average of six subpostmasters were convicted per year, compared with an average of 52 a year in the 13 years following its introduction, until the Post Office stopped prosecuting in 2013.

After Capture was introduced, prosecutions increased, but to a much smaller extent than investigations. However, the Post Office contract meant subpostmasters who had unexplained shortfalls, which the investigations typically related to, had to cover those shortfalls with their own money or face the termination of their contracts or prosecution.

The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history.

Horizon is a large, complex, networked system connected to centralised services with links to Post Office systems, which all subpostmasters have to use. In contrast, the Capture system was a PC-based application developed by the Post Office and uploaded to a personal computer by subpostmasters to carry out their accounts. The software – referred to by some users as a “glorified spreadsheet” – was a standalone system, which was used by more than 1,500 subpostmasters.

Computer Weekly reported in January that former users of the software had come forward claiming they had been prosecuted for unexplained shortfalls. Former MP Kevan Jones, who now sits in the House of Lords, was involved in the campaign for justice for Horizon victims and has spearheaded a campaign for subpostmasters who believe they suffered losses and criminal prosecution as a result of Capture errors.

After pressure, the government commissioned an investigation of Capture to be carried out by forensic specialists Kroll. This report is now in the hands of the government and its publication is expected soon.

Neil Hudgell, a solicitor at Hudgell Solicitors, which has about 40 former Capture users as clients, said he is confident that the content of the report will be supportive of his clients’ claims.

Steve Marston was prosecuted in 1996 for theft and false accounting following an unexplained shortfall of nearly £80,000 in his branch in Bury, Lancashire. He said he had never had any problems using the paper-based accounting system. This changed when his branch, which he ran from 1973, began using Capture.

He covered the losses with his own money, but it kept getting worse. After an audit revealed a loss he couldn’t fully cover out of his own pocket, he was advised to plead guilty to theft and fraud to avoid jail. The judge took into account two bravery awards Marston had received for standing up to armed robbers, saving him a jail sentence. He was given a 12-month suspended sentence, lost his home and business, and went bankrupt.

Marston said the stats in the latest FOI response provide a damning indictment of the effects that the introduction of Capture had. “Are we really expected to believe that, all of a sudden, honest and hard-working postmasters who have substantial amounts of money invested in their businesses have all gone rogue at the same time?

“Surely someone at the Post Office should have seen that the numbers [of investigations] literally exploded after the introduction of Capture, which we know to be unfit for purpose and, in my opinion, should never have been made public.”

Marston, who will meet the government next week to discuss the Capture controversy, said he hopes to get justice. The government is expected to publish the Kroll report on Capture soon.

In June, Computer Weekly revealed another similarity between Capture and Horizon in terms of inadequate training. Subpostmasters used pre-Horizon Capture software without any training from the Post Office, a failing that mirrors one of the causes of the Post Office Horizon scandal. Despite a Post Office document from 1995 outlining the training users received, former subpostmasters, who encountered serious problems with Capture, have come forward revealing they had no training. One of the major problems with the controversial Horizon system was the lack of adequate training on using the system.

Computer Weekly has contacted the Post Office for comment.

The Post Office scandal was first exposed by Computer Weekly in 2009, revealing the stories of seven subpostmasters and the problems they suffered due to Horizon accounting software, which led to the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history.

 

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Report 2

The Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry resumed while we were away: I'm not going to have time to comment on what I haven't even started to watch/listen to, but this report from Mark Sweney of The Guardian shows that, whilst PO CEO Nick Read thinks he has changed the business structure, he really doesn't understand at all.

Post Office asked to use Horizon IT data to support criminal case this year, inquiry hears

The Post Office attempted to use Horizon IT data to support a criminal case against a post office owner earlier this year, despite hundreds of post office operators being wrongfully prosecuted for theft, fraud and false accounting because of bugs in the system.

A chain of email correspondence between the Post Office and the Horizon developer, Fujitsu, relating to a police investigation into a potential criminal case involving a “large sum of money” against a sub-post office operator was shown at the public inquiry into the scandal on Tuesday.

An email was sent by John Bartlett, the head of investigations at the Post Office, to Fujitsu describing the Post Office as the “potential victim” and asking for the software company to provide a witness statement to the police or the case would not be able to progress.

The issue was rapidly escalated to Paul Patterson, the chief executive of Fujitsu Europe, who wrote directly to the Post Office chief executive, Nick Read.

“I am writing to you directly in order to raise serious concerns that have come to my attention which indicate the Post Office continues to pursue enforcement against postmasters and expects Fujitsu to support such actions,” he said in an email in May.

“We are concerned by the behaviour of the Post Office investigation team on this matter. That team maintains the approach of the Post Office as a ‘victim’ and requires Fujitsu to provide a witness statement as to the reliability of Horizon data stating that without such statement the case will not progress. For the investigations team to act in this manner seems to disregard the serious criticism raised in multiple judicial findings and indeed exhibits a lack of respect to the ongoing inquiry.”

Read responded by saying that there had been a “fundamental misunderstanding” at Fujitsu about the “Post Office’s current day culture and activities”.

He said that the Post Office was not continuing its pursuit of post office operators in private prosecutions – “including providing supporting data from the Horizon system” for cases – and that it was to help a potential police investigation.

Patterson responded saying that he considered the request to be “entirely inappropriate”, adding that the Post Office is “well aware there have been and there continue to be bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon system”.

“It seems clear that the Post Office continues to have significant cultural issues,” he said. “[It] sees itself as a ‘victim’ with the enforcement and prosecution of postmasters considered as a business as usual activity. Fujitsu finds the language and the suggested behaviour unacceptable from Post Office investigators.”

Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office relentlessly pursued and wrongfully prosecuted more than 700 operators using faulty Horizon IT data.

The email request to Fujitsu came after ITV aired Mr Bates vs the Post Office, which brought the plight of the post office operators and use of the flawed data in legal actions to national attention.

UPDATE 2 October - REPORT 3 

Post Office spending £80,000+ a week on engineers who can’t work, as IT project burns cash

In another Karl Flinders Computer Weekly report, it turns out that Horizon replacement NBIT isn't doing so well either.

The Post Office has been paying more than £80,000 per week for contracted IT engineers to sit idle due to major delays in rolling out hardware for its New Business IT (NBIT) project.

In yet another example of taxpayers’ money being wasted, as the Post Office tries to rid itself of the system at the centre of a scandal, Computer Weekly can reveal that £1.6m could be spent on IT staff who are unable to do work they were contracted to do. This is as a result of issues with power supply units that can’t be used in the project to replace the controversial Horizon system. The NBIT project has already gone from a costing of £180m to £1bn.*

The latest waste was revealed as the Post Office scandal public inquiry was told by two former Post Office executives – chairman Henry Staunton and chief financial officer (CFO) Alisdair Cameron – this week that the NBIT project lacks governance.

According to an internal Post Office NBIT progress update, under the heading “high level issues”, tech engineers from IT supplier DXC, who were contracted in mid-June, have no work to do due to the issues with power supply units. The engineers will have to wait 16 to 20 weeks before replacement units are available, allowing them to complete the work they were contracted to do.

(* My emphasis)

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News snippets for September 2024

Greetings everybody, we're back from Ireland where the weather was much better than it has been, and remains, here in the UK.    A taste of this was the yellow alert issued for the eastern side of Northern Ireland after we sailed to Scotland on Wednesday, and what we had for a considerable time in Co Durham and the north east yesterday which continues today- after a sunny interlude across Lincolnshire yesterday afternoon - in Norfolk.

It's happened before that important announcements are made when we take a break, so this is a quick acknowledgement to the many people who have written in the last three weeks.

The following topics will be covered in blog posts soon:

- September slogan postmarks

- Postage rate increase meaning a new airmail rate stamp (and Royal Mail have confirmed that there will be no more airmail rate country definitives.

- outstanding orders: sorry I forgot to shut the shop so a few orders have been delayed.

- forgeries and how Royal Mail is dealing with them

- amazingly incorrect information being supplied by Post Office branches including Crown Offices. (You don't have to use old stamps before the price increase!)

- I'll also be writing about blog comments which have not been published.  Comments must be relevant to the post they are on.

- the person who wrote about Universal Mail will get a reply eventually!

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Spiders - set of 10 stamps, issued 26 September 2024

Described by Wikipedia as "air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk;  the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms" Royal Mail's next stamp issue features a set of ten spiders.

Of the 48,000 or so species of spiders found worldwide, around 680 are recorded in the United Kingdom. They can be found in almost every habitat – from windswept mountain tops to domestic dwellings.  The set of ten stamps includes 5 each of 2nd class and 1st class.

Five 2nd class and five 1st class Spider stamps in se-tenant strips issued 26 September 2024

The stamp designs

2nd class: Sand bear spider, Cucumber spider, Woodland jumping spider, Four-spotted orb web*spider, Nurseryweb spider;  (*not orb weaver as originally published - the issued stamp will be correct.)

Corrected version of the Orbweb spider stamp:

Four-spotted Orbweb Spider stamp

 

1st class: Ladybird spider, Candy-striped spider, Wasp spider, Zebra spider, Heather crab spider.

Technical details

The 37 x 35 mm stamps were designed by Richard Lewington and printed on gummed paper by Cartor Security Printers in litho.  Perforations are 14 x 14½.  Sheets are of 60 (probably two panes of 30).

Products

Stamp set, first day cover, presentation pack, stamp cards.

Details from presentation pack

Of the 48,000 o or so species of spider found worldwide, around 680 are recorded in the United Kingdom. They represent 38 families from a world total of 115, which means that there is plenty of variety in the British spider fauna. Spiders can be found in almost every habitat – from windswept mountain tops to the deepest caves, and from ancient woodlands to domestic dwellings – each of which provides specific environments that suit particular spiders.

Spiders have eight legs and two parts to the body: the cephalothorax, covered with a shield-like carapace, and the abdomen, both of which may be quite colourful and have clear markings. Most British spiders have eight eyes, but those in four families have just six. Size, which relates to the body length and excludes the legs, varies from 2mm to 22mm. Females are generally larger than males, extravagantly so in a few cases. 

Spiders found in the UK feed almost exclusively on invertebrates and play a vital role in controlling pests, particularly in domestic environments. Close observation of a large orb web of a garden spider in the early autumn will reveal the remains of countless greenfly entrapped, perhaps in a period of just one day. Four families, the Araneidae, Tetragnathidae, Uloboridae and Theridiosomatidae, spin orb webs. Other families, such as the Eresidae and Atypidae, weave tunnels of silk in burrows underground with exposed, camouflaged sections at the surface that entangle passing insects.

The Agelenidae, which include the familiar large house spiders, also incorporate tunnel-shaped retreats into their sheet-like webs, which can be quite extensive in outbuildings when left undisturbed.

But webs are not the only means of catching prey. Other spider families use different tactics to provide themselves with food. For example, wolf spiders (Lycosidae) do not spin a web; instead, they run rapidly over the ground, simply chasing down their prey.

Jumping spiders (Salticidae) also do not spin webs to catch food. Their excellent eyesight enables them to determine the location of potential prey nearby, before they position themselves to leap forward to capture it. Conversely, the crab spiders (Thomisidae) are quite sedentary and lie in wait, often in flowerheads, to ambush insects feeding on nectar and pollen.

However, their close relatives, the running crab spiders (Philodromidae), scuttle rapidly among the foliage of trees and bushes in their hunt for prey.

Spider silk is produced for different purposes, ranging from the creation of protective egg sacs or cocoons for newly hatched spiderlings to the spinning of the complicated structure of the orb web. 

One of the most remarkable ways in which spiders use silk is a dispersal method known as ‘ballooning’. In suitable weather conditions, small adult ‘money spiders’ and immature individuals of larger species climb to an exposed position, such as the top of a fence post, and spin threads of silk that are then (with the spider attached) caught up in the wind. Considerable distances can be travelled in this way, and height seems to present no problem. In the Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin reported seeing spiders ballooning on the rigging of the ship sailing 60 miles off the Argentinian coast. Recent research has shown that electrostatic forces in the Earth’s atmosphere may also have some part to play in this ‘flying’ adventure that many spiders undertake. The results of ballooning can sometimes be observed on clear autumn evenings. 

Fields covered with a fine blanket of silken threads, or gossamer, attest to the presence of countless small spiders, all taking advantage of suitable weather conditions to balloon. It has been estimated that an acre of grassland could support up to 2.25 million individual spiders at this time of year, so the silken mantle can be quite substantial.

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Advancing warning for arachnaphobes - they're coming!

As collectors and other readers may know, the next stamp issue from Royal Mail features a selection of what Wikipedia describes as

... air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms.

In short, spiders.

So if you have an aversion to these creatures, I suggest you avoid the blog for the next couple of weeks because although this next post has been scheduled for publication on 12 September, we will be away from the office until 1 October - so there will be nothing to push it down the page.

The next scheduled blog post after that will be for the Music Giants X (The Who) issue on 3 October, although I shall try to squeeze in a post on September postmarks if anybody sends anything interesting for publication.

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