Postal Services

NWL are looking to identify a service provider for the provision of postal services primarily for the post mailed by the Customer Department. The services to be provided include;

• Economy Mailmark or Mailmark
• 2 day unsorted
• 3 day unsorted (where a 2 day unsorted service is not available)

NWL require a postal service primarily for business to customer post - bills and letters. We also require it as a means of communication with the company shareholders, and a way of sharing information with employees.

The timeliness of deliveries is critical to NWL as it affects the performance of our Customer Call Centres and impacts on cash flow. The NWL Customer Department currently issues more than 4.5 million postings per year. There is a further small amount of spend through various departments issuing external mail.

The Customer Departments mail is dispatched from the following locations:

• Northumbria House, Pity Me, Durham
• NWL Bill Printers - Warrington (printing services currently under tender so this may change)

The remaining requirements issued via our Facilities Departments are dispatched from the following locations:

• Northumbria House, Pity Me, Durham DH1
• Leat House, Washington NE38

All new potential suppliers must be a downstream access provider (DSA) and have a good track record of service in this service area, gained through service provided since the opening of the market from the 1st January 2006

The Contract start date will be the 1 November 2024

Volumes of items mailed - Detailed below are the approximate volumes of mail sent for each service from each of the posting locations. NWL require the collections to be as late as possible in the day.

Customer Department Requirements

Northumbria House

• Daily Volumes 35, Annual Volumes 9,200, 2 day unsorted service, Monday to Friday, Collection times - Approx 4:00pm

NWL Bill Printers

• Daily Volumes 14,538, Annual Volumes 3,780,000, Mailmark/Mailmark Economy, Monday to Friday, Collection times 5:30pm
• Daily Volumes 34,375, Annual Volumes 550,000 (Annual Billing), Mailmark/Mailmark Economy, Monday to Friday 4 days per week from February to March, Collection times 5:30pm
• Daily Volumes 557, Annual Volumes 145,000, 2 day unsorted, Monday to Friday, Collection times 5:30pm

Facilities Department

Northumbria House

• Daily volumes 115, Annual volumes letter 30,000, 2 day unsorted, Monday to Friday, Collection times - Approx 4:00pm

Leat House, Washington

• Daily volumes 12, Annual volumes letter 3,200, 2 day unsorted, Tuesday and Thursday, Collection times - Approx 1:00pm to 3.00pm

The majority of mail collected from the Customer Department are letters and are enclosed in C5 envelopes with a small number of DL envelopes also being used.

Mailsorted (Economy Mailmark) work is presented in trays to obtain the cheapest mailing rates available. We started using Economy Mailmark in November 2023, and this is currently being trialled. We may revert to standard Mailmark if we find the service level is not what we need.

We will require separate account numbers for each of the posting locations and where the Customer Department and Facilities Department mail from the same location we will require two separate accounts.

The volumes for annual billing are in addition to the daily volumes.

From time to time it may be necessary to carry out ad hoc mailings at very short notice.

A small number of items (approximately 100 items per month) are currently mailed abroad we will therefore require an international mail account.