How do you think the service provided by Royal Mail will be affected with the announcement that they are to be privatised?

I hadn't heard they were going to be privatised. Is the whole service going or just bits? If it's everything, I'm going to guess that city services will improve and rural (less profitable) services will suffer.

I think at this stage it will be part privatisation. The Unions are worried as if private firms do take over then the postal service might improve especially in City/urban areas but as MrWallet says I fear for rural communities. I live close to a sorting office and at about 3.30pm, I see a number of posties pack the boots of their cars with the post they are going to deliver the next day, which might account for the delays in getting post to people in a timely manner.

Privatisation, will open up the market to competition and this could be a good thing as long as their a genuine safeguards put in place to protect the consumer.

The government has said that the Post Office will not be part of the privatisation.

As a private enterprise the service will gradually deteriorate especially when the new PLC will focus on fat profits to shareholders rather than improving customer service.

Service will go down even if the Royal Mail will be sold off to the highest bidder. What is even more worrying is that this would shift the company's £10.3bn pension fund deficit on to the taxpayer.This would mean the country's 25m households would theoretically take on a liability of more than £400 each. It is crazy to privatise now.

Royal mail already handles a lot of contracted out post from companies such as NTL but efficiency will suffer with privatisation as jobs will be cut.

I agree with noddy1,jobs will probably be cut,and the service will be affected.We always had a second class postal delivery,but don,t get that any longer.

The postal system needs a good shake up. We had no post this week from tues to sat as no postie as our normal one was on holiday. The postie who came on sat had no idea where he was supposed to go. We should have one decent delivery everyday. No doubt if it is sold off etc jobs will be lost and prices will go up.