The French Minister of the Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire and CEO of La Poste Group Phillippe Wahl, have jointly signed a public service agreement between the French government and La Poste for the next four years. La Poste have released a statement saying that the new agreement has a number of ‘innovations’.
In a statement, La Poste said: “The Public Service Agreement details the State’s undertaking to support the four public service missions enshrined in legislation, namely, guaranteeing quality postal service; maintaining a territorial network of 17,000 retail outlets, particularly in rural areas; offering bank services to fragile population groups; and ensuring the delivery of an independent, quality press in France, in exchange for which La Poste commits to respecting ambitious quality indicators.
“Moreover, the 2018-2022 Public Service Agreement develops the innovation introduced in the 2013-2017 Agreement, that is, citizens’ commitments, illustrating La Poste’s desire to contribute actively to the general interest by backing the development of the digital society and local services and by committing to responsible sustainable development.”
La Poste said the 2018-2022 Public Service Agreement is an extension of the 2013-2017 Agreement, but has introduced a number of innovations.
According to La Poste: “As regards universal postal service, the commitments undertaken in the new Public Service Agreement come under two main headings:
-Reworking the mechanism for monitoring service quality. The Public Service Agreement relies on new indicators to strengthen the monitoring of user satisfaction, above and beyond mere performance. The aim is to provide a reworked service quality tool that better meets customer needs for universal service.
-Enhancing the product offering: in view of user new expectations, La Poste undertakes to enhance its product range in 2018 by offering an option for tracking all single-piece mail. Furthermore, in order to help small e-merchants develop abroad, La Poste will incorporate a corporate parcel tracking option in its universal service catalogue as from 1 March 2018.”
The La Poste statement continued: “As regards regional development, the new Public Service Agreement takes up the main provisions of the 2017-2019 local postal presence agreement, which relied on a network of 17,000 retail outlets to maintain a postal presence in rural areas, specially designated neighbourhoods and the overseas departments, ensure the long-term viability of partnerships (post offices and postal pick-up points) and develop new forms of pooling services (public service areas as well as postmen counter clerks in post offices).
“Moreover, the 2017-2019 local postal presence agreement gives the Departmental Postal Presence Territorial Commissions1 (CDPPT) more latitude (they can experiment, particularly with new solutions for pooling services) and autonomy when it comes to managing their resources. It also boosts digital accessibility by allocating at least 15 % of overall departmental funding, that is, €75M over three years, or €30M more than in the previous agreement.
“As for the mission of press delivery, La Poste will continue, at a very high level of service quality, to facilitate the transportation and delivery of the written press via preferential postal rates for newspaper publishers. The Public Service Agreement extends, until 2020, the annual financial compensation amounts paid by the State.
“With regard to banking accessibility, La Poste will continue to fulfil this mission via La Banque Postale, through the Livret A savings account, a tool for promoting the use of banking and saving facilities by financially vulnerable customers. The amount of compensation paid by the State, which is approved by the European Commission, is set by decree until 2020.”
