Summary
1.1 Under the Postal Services Act 2011 ("the Act") Ofcom took over responsibility for regulating the postal sector on 1 October 2011. The Act allows us to impose an administrative charge on postal operators providing services within the scope of the universal postal service to meet costs incurred by us in carrying out our functions in relation to postal services. In order for us to impose an administrative charge we must publish and put in force a statement of the principles we are proposing to apply in setting charges for that year.
1.2 On 13 December 2011, Ofcom consulted on our proposals to change the Statement of Charging Principles for Postal Services published on 29 September 2011.
1.3 The proposals were to make amendments to this existing Statement of Charging Principles for Postal Services so that it would be consistent with the Act rather than referencing the Postal Services Act 2000 licensing regime.
1.4 The proposals were to have the effect of continuing to impose a charge on postal operators who provide postal services within the scope of the universal postal service consisting of letter services.
1.5 Ofcom also proposed to allow postal operators to pay the annual administrative charge by means of monthly payments where that annual charge is more than £75,000.
1.6 The updated Statement of Charging Principles ("the Statement") will apply for the 2012/13 charging year (1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013), and any subsequent charging year, until we make a new Statement or revise the Statement.
1.7 During the 2012/13 charging year, we expect to undertake a review of the Statement and we may consider alternative methods for imposing an administrative charge on postal operators providing a service within the scope of the universal postal service. Therefore, the Statement will apply from the next charging year (i.e. the charging year 2012/13) and may be amended in future years.
1.8 The published Statement is contained in Annex 1.