BRT&G Agreement – Joint Communication – Network Window Update
In June 2023, Royal Mail and the CWU shared the indicative modelling for Delivery Office start and finish times before CWU members participated in the ballot on the RM/CWU Business Recovery, Transformation and Growth Negotiators Agreement, which was subsequently endorsed by the membership.
In sharing the indicative modelling outputs both parties recognise that changes to start and finish times are of concern to many employees in all functions, particularly in Delivery, and commit to seek to minimise change in start and finish times whilst still achieving the necessary improvements in cost and environmental impact due to reducing the reliance on air transport.
In July 2023, the National and Local Joint Working Groups were established and have focused on exploring options to improve upon Delivery start and finish times, as per the commitments set out in Appendix 2 of the BRT&G Agreement. Since then both parties have embarked on a joint programme of work designed to achieve the necessary Pipeline work flow and Mail Centre cycle time improvements required to limit the change to start and finish times up to a maximum of 60 minutes.
Royal Mail and the CWU have made significant progress through the Joint Working Groups established at all levels. Given the complexity associated with designing a National network both parties have agreed to a revised timetable to that published in June 2023.
The revised high-level timelines are as follows:
- Delivery employees informed of change to start and finish times in February
- Exceptions process opens from February
- Deployment of the Network Window Change in Delivery Offices with an up to 15-minute change from April 2024, with phased deployment to other Delivery Offices by June 2024.
- Deployment of the Network Window Changes in Processing, Regional & National Distribution to go live June 2024.
The next steps regarding the improvements made to the previous published data is that the revised start/finish times will now be subject to further review and the assumptions tested by the Local & Regional Joint Working Groups. This activity will enable the assumptions to be agreed and finalised, or where there remain challenges both parties will seek to find further improvements and/or solutions to mitigate the times further, if indeed this is possible.
Following this activity, for those areas that still remain unresolved a process will be put in place at Local, Area and Divisional level in order to seek a mutual resolution, however if that still leaves Delivery Offices and Mail Centre catchment Areas with unresolved units, these will be escalated to the National Joint Working Group for intervention.
Both parties are continuing to work on several operational processes to support the activity as set out above, which will be further supplemented with a process for offering further clarification where necessary on Network Window changes, and alongside the issuing of a joint FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document.
In addition, further National talks are continuing in order to finalise the individual’s Exceptions Process ready for when publication of start and finish times formally take place.
Finally, discussions have been held with CWU’s Communications Department regarding next steps and how we can provide relevant updates in the coming weeks relating to videos, podcasts and live sessions and further developments will be published in due course.
Any enquiries in relation to this LTB should be addressed to Davie Robertson, Assistant Secretary, email: shayman@cwu.org quoting reference number: 054.06. or Mark Baulch, the Outdoor Department, email: jrodrigues@cwu.org quoting reference number: 580.
Yours sincerely
Davie Robertson
Assistant Secretary
Mark Baulch
Assistant Secretary
LTB 004/24 – BRTG Agreement – Joint Communication – Network Window Update 04.01.24
Att: Final RM_CWU Joint Communication Network Window Update Jan 2024_signed
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 
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