The Polish Post is the sole operator organisationally prepared to render universal postal services in Poland. It has a network of more than 8 thousand post offices and hires approx. 90 thousand employees. NIK verified if the Post transformation from a state-owned public utility company into a joint stock company in 2009 resulted in improvement of its functioning and increase of competitiveness on the liberalising postal market.
The audit of NIK revealed that access to services provided by the Polish Post remains limited. Only 20 post offices in Poland are open 24 hours a day. Most of them are open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the cities and even shorter in rural areas - from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. In 8,423 postal outlets owned by the operator in 2011 (post offices, post office branches and postal agencies) only 8,016 were open. At the same time the number of postal outlets providing service to customers was 224 smaller than required by the provisions of law.
One of the key problems of the Polish Post is that postmen too often leave notice cards in mailboxes instead of delivering parcels and registered mail to homes. It is so because in the light of effective regulations placing a notice card in the mailbox is considered as mail delivery. A postman who left e.g. 100 notice cards in mailboxes is evaluated better by the Post Management in terms of efficiency than the one who in the same period delivered 20 consignments to addressees (although it requires additional time to reach a flat, write a confirmation of receipt and perform other activities prolonging the working time). Besides, such practice shifts the burden of collecting mail to customers and employees of postal outlets, which in case of limited headcount in post offices translates into longer queues and lengthening time of service.
The Polish Post did not execute main assumptions of the strategic programmes developed by external companies. The majority of tasks aimed at restructuring were done with delay or only partially. The changes related to organisation and employment were not carried out to a sufficient degree, the network of postal outlets was not rationalised, the costs and income were not optimised. As a consequence, the improvement of services proved impossible. The Polish Post commercialisation did not lead to the expected change of the Company image. Moreover, the lack of effective restructuring actions and the simultaneous salary increase made the operator incur significant financial losses in the years 2008-2009.
NIK also identified uneconomic actions taken by the Polish Post in the restructuring process. The Company spent more than PLN 7.5 million to buy three strategies of operations that were not executed. Another example is the purchase of the IT Real Property Management System for more than PLN 13 million. From the very beginning the system did not operate in a manner enabling its full use.
Since 2010, the Company has undertaken restructuring measures that made it earn the profit of PLN 105.8 million for 2011. In July 2011, a new Management Board was appointed. Its main task is the Company development and implementation of key restructuring initiatives. The Polish Post intends to change the Company image and the work organisation of its outlets so that by 2015 they become customer-friendly places, offering smooth sale of postal and financial services. The new Management Board of the Polish Post focuses on the development of parcel and courier services and the offer of so-called e-services, combining traditional ways of communication and state-of-the-art technologies.
