1. What is the ‘concept’ of the Mint’s products? A unique manufacturing operation in the UK is the Royal Mint at Llantrisant in South Wales.

The Royal Mint is designated as an executive agency responsible to the Treasury of HM Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is appointed (ex-officio) as Master of the Mint.

Its objective is to provide the Government with coinage at a competitive price. The Royal Mint has the capacity to handle all of the UK business and still be able to bid for contracts from those countries that do not have their own minting operation. It serves over 60 countries in any one year and produces in excess of three billion coins annually. Its manufacturing requirement ranges from high volumes of standard coinage to individual service medals or commemorative coins.

In the UK, the Treasury contracts with the Royal Mint on an annual basis for the likely requirements for coins in the following 12 months and the Treasury is also responsible for decisions on any changes to the coinage. The last coin that was introduced was the new, smaller 10p coin; this involved an issue of over one billion new coins and the withdrawal of all the old coins from circulation. This represents one of the largest single projects undertaken and a massive logistics exercise to coordinate the movement of the coins. The Mint meets every three months with executives from the UK clearing banks to discuss their requirements for currency in the shorter term. These estimates are then updated at weekly planning meetings. The Mint would like to work to a ‘just-in-time’ schedule, but because of the nature of the product and the implications of the money not being available, they are obliged to keep a predetermined safety stock to cover any shortfalls