An Analysis of Nationalisation and its Effect on the UK Postal Service

This essay examines the impact of nationalisation on the UK postal service, focusing on the shift from private to public ownership. The paper explores the motivations behind nationalisation, including meeting social and economic targets and improving service quality. It discusses the merits and demerits of public ownership, considering factors like cost savings, customer interests, and the protection of employment. The essay analyzes the competitive landscape of the UK postal market, dominated by Royal Mail, and evaluates the influence of regulatory changes and investment dynamics. It also addresses arguments against nationalisation, such as potential cost burdens and inefficiencies, while emphasizing the importance of regulatory improvements and efficiency. The conclusion highlights the potential for improved performance through public ownership, focusing on allocative, dynamic, and productive efficiency, and the government's role in managing these aspects to benefit the public.

Running head: THE CHANGES IN ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCES FOR THE
NATIONALISATION
The Changes in Organizational Performances for the Nationalisation
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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THE CHANGES IN ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCES FOR THE
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Introduction
The ownership may influence the performance of the organizations. In order to transform
the private assets into the public assets by changing the ownership under the state or national
government is known as nationalisation. In addition, it shifts the ownership of the assets from the
private sector or lower level of the government to public ownership (Ifs.org.uk 2020). The
government of the United Kingdom (UK) proposed to transform the ownership of the postal
service of the UK to improve the performance of the organization. This paper will examine the
role of nationalization on the performance of the postal service of the UK. In the UK, the postal
services are offered by the Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd.
Body
The market of the postal services in the UK has been completely opened for the
competition since 2006, which flourished the delivery of business to business (Jones 2004).
However, it failed to thrive the market for ordinary letter delivery. The regulator of the industry
is Ofcom and Consumer Focus represents the consumer interests. Though, the main legislation is
followed according to the Postal Services Act 2011 since 1st October 2011, the application of the
Postal Services Act 2000 was still there in some parts. As per 2011 Act, the government may
privatise the postal services of the UK. There are several merits and demerits of the
nationalisation and it helps to improve the performance of the services (Pratley 2019). The main
reason behind nationalisation of the postal services of UK were meeting the social and economic
targets and improving the quality of services. The nationalisation of the postal services of the UK
would save a large amount of cost of the households.

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NATIONALISATION
The private ownership of the services required a higher cost for the investment and
paying dividends of shareholders. While under a public ownership, the cost can be saved and
used for providing better services to the people. The public ownership will assist to improve the
weakness of the private sector. The performance of the postal services went through significant
turmoil and dwindling growth created the pressure on the customers. As a result, the customer
need to compensate in order to gain the efficiency of the organization. The organization
performance mainly depends on the meeting social and economic targets under public
ownership. As the postal services was unable to meet the social and economic targets. It created
pressure in the customers to pay more for the services related to postal. Though, there were few
competitors in the market of the postal services of the UK such as UK mail and Whistl, Northern
Mail, Central Mailing Services, The Delivery Group and Citipost Mail (Postoffice.co.uk 2020).
The market is notably dominated by the Royal Mail of the UK due to their hold in Down Stream
Access. It enables them to dominate the postal service market of the UK.
The service provided by these private postal services depends on the investments comes
from the banks. However, complexities in the regulatory landscape and changes in postal market
dynamics of the UK postal services led to the limit in investment from the largest bank like
Lloyd’s banking group. Thus, the postal service of the UK was unable to pass on the benefit of
the service to the general public (Hall and Hobbs 2017). In addition, the public ownership will
ensure the interest of the customers and will not emphasis on revenue generation. Therefore,
nationalisation will help to protect the public interest and results in achieving the social aims of
the government. It will also scale up the quality of the service offered by the Royal Mail in the
UK. Furthermore, nationalisation also safeguards the employment opportunity of the
organization. Thus, the employees are also protected from the job loss and it encourages them to

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NATIONALISATION
provide between services (Berger and Miller 2015). Therefore, as a whole, the public ownership
increases the efficiency of the organization and quality of the service. Thus, the main motive of
the UK government behind the nationalization of the postal services of the UK was to enhance
the quality and efficiency of the services. One of the important vehicle of the macro-control is
public sector. It ensures the payment of the restraints when required in time of inflation.
Likewise, employment can also be provided at different stage of the cycle under the
public sector to control the issues related to the macroeconomic (Hall and Weghmann 2019). The
increases in public ownership through nationalisation of the UK postal services will act as a tool
to control the macroeconomic issues. There are various arguments against the nationalisation,
which may downgrade the performance of the organization. Therefore, it is required to analyse
the performance of the postal service of the UK under the public ownership. It will help to
understand the consequences the organization may face by adopting public ownership. The
nationalisation of the postal service may impose a cost to the government and it may also
increase the burden of the tax payers. Sometimes government ownership leads to weak
productivity growth, which will further deteriorate the postal service.
It is necessary to avoid overinvestment in the postal services of the UK to prevent the
inefficiencies of the organization (Youds 2019). Another problem that may face by the postal
service of the UK include diseconomies of scale due to the overstaffing in the organization. The
efficiency of the government in budget control and project management is also play a crucial role
in the improving organizational performances under public ownership. The public ownership to
transform the market of postal services in the UK need to ensure some key factors to achieve
economic efficiency. One of the essential factors is improving the regulations. The regulatory
system of the UK government should be strengthen with the help of international standards.

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NATIONALISATION
Though, there is various risks in terms of nationalisation of the postal services. It can be
improved with the help of productive, dynamic and allocative efficiency (Hall 2020). There
should be a balance between the funding and delivery of the services for the common people.
Therefore, the UK government should take into consideration all these factors to successful the
nationalisation of the postal services. In addition, it will also offer attractive and timely services
for the customers at a minimum cost.
Conclusion
The performance of organization is influenced by the ownership. Therefore, change in
ownership may bring positive as well negative impact for the organization. The government of
the UK proposed to nationalise the postal services through transforming the private ownership to
public ownership. According to the government, it will increase the efficiency and quality of the
postal services of the UK (Ramakistayya 2015). However, it may also pose some consequences
on the postal services. There are some key areas that should be maintained by the government
such as managing the regulatory system and controlling the budget. Public ownership may able
to save the customers from the burden of paying higher amount for the services. The government
of the UK should focus more on improving allocative, dynamic and productive efficiency of the
postal services of the UK. Moreover, there is a possibility of improvements in the performance
of the postal services of the UK because of transforming the ownership to the public sector.

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