EVERYONE with an address is suffering the fallout from the disastrous mismanagement of the Post Office. Both the amount of first class post delivered late and customer complaints have increased significantly in the past few years. What was one of Britain's proudest institutions, an example of public service at its best, has lost its way.

We might date the decline from 1999, the last time when the Post Office turned in a profit. Since then, it has made huge losses.

But the rot set in long before that. Successive Governments bear much of the blame. They neither reinvested enough of the Post Office's profits in the business, nor granted it enough commercial freedom to counteract the huge threat from email.

An inept management heightened the impact of these mistakes. Their woeful decision to rename the business Consignia - a name set to be dropped in the next two years - encapsulated the boardroom muddle.

Now York postal workers and householders could pay the price. Staff at the Birch Park depot in Huntington were told that jobs might be cut as part of Consignia's desperate attempt to cut costs.

This would be a bitter blow for the postmen and women who are the company's biggest asset. It would further lower morale, already in bad shape due to Consignia's disastrous industrial relations record, labelled by an independent inquiry as "a disaster".

This would also be bad news for customers. The shake-up could delay some deliveries by several hours. That would affect everyone from children waiting for their birthday cards to the increasing number of small business people who work from home and rely on early mail deliveries.

Consignia's remedy for its ills is wrongheaded. Instead of upping its game to see off increased competition, it is reducing standards of service.

This can only increase pressure on the Government to open postal services up to free competition. And that could sound the death knell for Britain's universal post service.

Updated: 11:04 Wednesday, May 22, 2002