CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

Abstract

This chapter describes the publicly available sources of statistical information about postal and telecommunications services in the United Kingdom. The post office operated as a government department until 1969 when it became a public corporation on a basis similar to that of other nationalized industries. At that stage, it was organized as four almost independent businesses. The postal business provided letter and parcel mail services, and operated the agency services to other organizations, and the National Girobank offered payment, and personal banking services, and the telecommunications business operated the telephone, telegraph, telex, and other telecommunications services, and the National Data Processing Service provided computing services to the post office, and also to outside organizations. In 1977, the NDPS was absorbed into the telecommunications business as its Data Processing Executive. The post office is an enormous organization with an annual turnover in excess of £2,700 million in 1983. It handles over 10,000 million letters and 195 million parcels a year, and operates a nationwide chain of around 22,000 post offices. It employs 176,000 people directly and 21,000 more as agents in sub post offices.