2nd CLASS MAIL SERVICE

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Royal Mail to start leaving packages with neighbours. The company also wants to end compensation for loss or damage for business customers using 'untracked' services. Royal Mail has signalled an end to the inconvenience of arriving home to find a note saying your parcel with an online order or long-awaited gift must be retrieved from the local sorting office. It proposes that its delivery workers will in future be allowed to leave an undeliverable item with a neighbour if the householder is not at home.

The move will be welcomed by those who dread the time-consuming trip to the sorting office and a queue to collect their packet, but perhaps less so by those on frosty terms with their neighbours. Royal Mail is the only major delivery company which as standard practice does not deliver to a neighbouring address those items that will not fit through the letterbox. In a recent survey, leaving mail with a neighbour was the most popular option when no one was at home.

Royal Mail also wants to end compensation for loss or damage for business customers using "untracked" services, and to reduce the claim time-limit from 12 to two months. Stephen Agar, Royal Mail's director of regulated products, said, "The way we all use the post is changing rapidly. We are seeking approval to make some changes to the services we provide which better reflect today's postal market."

But Robert Hammond of Consumer Focus said the changes would cut customer rights and see their costs rise. While it was "sensible" to make the delivery change, he did not back cutting the compensation period to two months: He said, "We do not support reducing compensation claim times from a year to two months, as Royal Mail admits that almost a third of customers take more than two months to claim. As you can't claim in the first 15 working days after posting, this would effectively leave only six weeks to claim."

He also said there was no opt-out on leaving parcels next door: changes in business compensation could also see costs increase for cash-strapped customers. He added, "Some consumers will like the idea of being able to have mail left with a neighbour. However, worryingly there is no opt-out option and with many people having a neighbour they do not know, or might not trust, this could open the door to problems." (Source: The Guardian, Jul/11)

Royal Mail has told postmen they do not have to deliver to homes on cobbled streets in bad weather, because rain makes them too "dangerous". Sally Bellamy complained that deliveries to her street, the last cobbled road in Bideford, north Devon, had been erratic for three years. She claimed that her regular postman refuses to walk less than 20 yards along the path to her home even in good weather, and instead dumps mail with a neighbour at the top of the road. She described the situation as ridiculous and said although she suffered from arthritis in her ankles and other joints, she had no problem crossing the cobbles.

She said, "I've been told it's my path that's dangerous, but the slates have been there for 280 years without a problem. Courier parcels get delivered and fruit and veg gets delivered. They don't have problems. I don't believe my postman is endangering his life." Michael Dalton, of Royal Mail, said the company was making deliveries to the terrace, except when it was considered unsafe. He said, "The road is in a poor state of repair and when wet or icy it can become dangerous. There are occasions when we have not been able to make deliveries and alternative arrangements have been made. We are in contact with residents and continue to seek a solution with them." (Source: Daily Telegraph, Feb/10)

Royal Mail has been fined £11.7million for the amount of post that is lost, stolen or damaged. Postcomm, the official regulator, said it was issuing the penalty because of the Royal Mail's failure to meet its obligations to protect letters and parcels and for its poor performance in parts of London. Postcomm said it had uncovered some "serious" shortcomings during 2004/05, when 14.6 million letters, packets and parcels were lost, stolen, damaged or interfered with. (Source: The Sun, Feb/06)

Royal Mail is in danger of going bust because the Treasury refuses to bail it out to the tune of £2 billion. The money is required to help stem a pension deficit which is expected to rise to more than £6 billion by the end of 2006. A senior executive said, "We make about £600 million a year but we are going to have to put £800 million into the scheme because people are living longer. We are a commercial company and we can't sustain the losses. We'll go bust." If the Treasury does not provide the money, Royal Mail will go to the Competition Commission to ask for an increase in the price of stamps. Regulator Postcomm gave Royal Mail permission to raise stamp by 6p in the four years from April 2006 but Royal Mail argue that the real price should be 46p if it is to cover its losses. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Jan/06)

Royal Mail moved a postbox from outside the former St Dunstan's Post Office, Osmaston Road, a place it has stood for over 100 years, to the opposite side of the road, where there are no homes. The postbox was moved because it was on private property after the post office was transformed into a shop. It was one of 13 branches in the city to close as part of Post Office Limited's restructure of urban branches. A Royal Mail spokesman said, "We've had this on a couple of occasions when the box has been on private property and we've been asked to move it. We've been very careful where we've moved it to, we moved it across the road because we wanted to try and minimise any disruption to customers." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

Figures released by the Royal Mail show the organisation failed to meet its targets for delivering first-class letters sent from Derby. The new figures cover the first quarter of the financial year 2004, from April to June, and show that 88.2% of first-class post sent from the DE postcode to the rest of the country arrived on time.

The target is 92.5%, and the service also failed to hit its target with second-class postal deliveries, the target is 98.5% of letters sent from Derby to be delivered on time, but this figure achieved was 96.1%. However, Royal Mail also said that the figure for July showed that there has been a marked increase in performance, with 93.8% of post sent from Derby to other areas being delivered on time.

A spokeswoman said, "This July figure shows quite a significant improvement. There has been a period of immense change for our organisation, such as the move to single daily deliveries, and changes our workforce has to get used to. There's a settling in period and the fruits of that are coming through in the latest results that we are able to show."

The figures also showed that the Royal Mail missed all of its national targets in the first quarter. Just 88.3% of first-class letters were delivered on time across the country, but the company insisted that reliability was improving and said more than nine out of 10 first-class letters were arriving the day after being posted.

However, it is still having to pay a record £50m in compensation for late delivery of post. The compensation, to business and individual customers, followed disruption to the service in 2003, when deliveries were hit by industrial action. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

People should send Christmas cards second class because of the slide in first-class deliveries, the postal watchdog urged. Postwatch said more than three in 10 first-class letters posted over the past two years at Christmas time had failed to arrive the next day. The group said "a first-class stamp did not mean a first-class service" at this time of year.

Chairman Peter Carr said, "The well-known cliche is true, customers should post early for Christmas. While the first-class service falls to below 70% delivered next day, more than nine out of 10 second-class items are delivered on time in the weeks before Christmas. Customers should not only post early but use second-class stamps to the last recommended posting date of December 18."

The Royal Mail accused Postwatch of giving customers the wrong advice, saying, "First-class mail travels significantly faster than second-class at Christmas, as it does at all other times of the year. If customers want their Christmas cards to travel faster they should use first-class stamps. First-class mail gets priority and is sorted before we handle second-class mail. Despite the huge volumes of mail at Christmas, most first-class cards and first-class mail still arrives the day after posting." (Source: Daily Mirror)

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