The Panel's principles
The Panel was independent of Government and had no pre-conceived views about the way forward for the postal sector. They wanted the review to:
- Generate an active and constructive debate across the wide range of stakeholders with an interest in the postal service - This includes consumers and their representatives, companies providing postal services, trades unions, political parties, Government Departments, the devolved administrations and regulators. As a first step, the Panel established which of these issues stakeholders believed were most important for the review, and built their understanding of their perspective. To begin with members of the panel held some 50 meetings with a wide range of range of organisations in January and February 2008 and they also invited organisations to provide evidence at meetings of the panel, and organised seminars to debate particular issues throughout the review.
- Establish a body of evidence which has widespread support as a basis for considering options for the future - The Panel issued a general call for evidence from interested organisations when the review was announced. The Panel were very grateful to all those who took the time to respond and contribute to the review process. As evidence began arriving, from the end of March 2008, they held meetings to establish where there was already consensus, explore differences of opinion (whether about assumptions, methodology or data), and commissioned further work where necessary to fill in gaps in their understanding.
- Reach conclusions based on an objective analysis of various options - The Government asked for a comprehensive review and set out broad terms of reference. The Panel believed it was important to have a clear methodology: a logical framework which defined boundaries for the review, and which explained how evidence would be used to generate and test options for the future.
