Deed of variation - 2002 version contracts

Mail Contractors who hold contracts under the December 2002 or December 2002(Rev A) versions of the contract would have received a letter and Deed of Variation from AP Contracts in the past few days.It appears that AP is amending the older contracts to standardise the wording along the lines of the most recent version of the mail contract. This includes decreasing the percentage movement threshold for extraordinary fuel variation reviews under clause 10.3, changing the elapsed period until a request for review can be made, and changing the elapsed period until a further request for review can be made.The new clause 10.5 proposed under the Deed covers the concurrent operation of clause 9 and clause 10 of the mail contract. The new clause states that when a clause 10 fuel cost review coincides with a clause 9 review, only the results of the clause 9 review (which includes a fuel price review) will apply. The intention of this is to remove the possibility of requesting a further clause 10 review within three months of a clause 9 review.In principle, this is a welcome move from AP. POAAL has been calling for more flexible arrangements with respect to fuel price variations for some time. While this is a step in the right direction, AP can still do much more to improve the conditions relating to fuel price reviews.It should be noted that although the percentage threshold has been reduced from 10% to 7%, this is equally applicable to AP, that is, a reduction of only 7% in the wholesale price of fuel could trigger a review by AP to decrease payments.