Royal Mail has won a new contract from the Scottish Procurement covering 205 public sectororganisations while UK Mail also won a £3.3 million contract to provide mail services for 17 London
boroughs.As part of the new 3-4 year partnership with Scottish Procurement running from 1 March 2012,with the option to be extended for a further year, Royal Mail will manage the provision ofstationery, printing, sorting and delivery of mail to its final destination.
“This is a specialist area bringing together a number of elements and Royal Mail will beoffering a bespoke solution, specifically designed to meet the needs of Scottish Procurement andall the Public Sector Bodies it covers,” the UK postal operator said in a statement. The 205 publicsector organisations across Scotland will include central government, the health sector, localauthorities, fire and police stations.
Scottish Procurement split its Postal Services tender into two lots, one of which was related tohybrid and adhoc mail services and the second, more strategic contract won by Royal Mail concernedthe provision of planned mail, which covers the print and distribution of bulk mail. Royal Mail’sbid was considered the most economically advantageous and therefore represented a substantial costsaving to the Scottish taxpayer.
Graham Davis, Director of Sales at Royal Mail, said: “We are very pleased to have won thiscontract. Royal Mail put in a very strong commercial bid that was able to compete both on money andquality. Postal service is our business, it is what we do and have done for centuries and we arehappy to use our expertise to provide the best value to the Scottish taxpayer.”
Separately, UK Mail will provide its low-cost hybrid mail service imail to handle delivery for17 London boroughs which is expected to cut costs in the public sector by 34% through the mix oftraditional and hybrid method. The deal follows a collaborative tender exercise under theGovernment Procurement Service Postal Services Framework Agreement. UK Mail competed against eightother providers in the e-tender for the hybrid mail element of the contract.
UK Mail said it will start transforming the London boroughs’ existing postal output by initiallycollecting post before gradually making the switch to imail. Using the latest technology, imailwill produce, print, proof and post letters, direct mail, postcards, flyers and other forms ofcommunication from the councils, amounting to approximately 4.2 million pieces of correspondenceeach year.
Andy Barber, General Manager imail, said: “We’re delighted to have won this contract after avery competitive bidding process and are looking forward to working with the different boroughs tomaximise savings and help achieve efficiencies.”
“imail combines the ease of e-communications with the impact of physical mail in a way which notonly saves money but also has environmental benefits when measured against more traditionalmethods. Significant cost pressures can be eased quickly and effectively through imail’s newtechnology. With this contract we are offering immediate savings through collection and delivery ofexisting mail, while providing future cost savings through the migration of the mail to imail,”Barber added.
