2nd CLASS MAIL SERVICE

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Postmen in one part of Essex have been ordered to stop making deliveries to houses on unmade roads due to health and safety concerns. Residents in a small corner of Benfleet, Essex have been told they will no longer be able to receive deliveries because they live on roads with uneven surfaces making it too perilous for the postal workers to venture down. Locals in the affected areas now face a round trip of up to hour in order to collect their mail from their nearest sorting office. Doreen and Meredith Chatterton, who are both in their late 80s and have lived in the area for more than 40 years, said if the road surface was not too dangerous for them they could not understand why it was a problem for postal workers.

Some residents are so angry at the decision that they have now launched an official appeal against the decision and are demanding full services are restored. Royal Mail spokesman Sally Hopkins said the decision to temporarily suspend deliveries had been taken as a last resort. She said, "We have reluctantly decided to temporarily suspend deliveries to a number of addresses in a particular part of Benfleet. This is because the private, unpaved roads in the area are in a poor state of repair. That poor state of repair has meant some of our vehicles have been damaged and there have been some near accidents for our postmen and women."

She added, "It is the responsibility of the residents to ensure that private roads are fit for purpose and do not constitute a safety risk. This is far from being a trivial matter and we will not compromise on the safety of our colleagues or the roadworthiness of our vehicles. We have already apologised to customers affected by this temporary suspension. We do hope that they understand our reasons for doing so. We have written to them giving details of how they can receive their mail – either delivery to an alternative address or how to collect items from us. We are keen to resume deliveries to these addresses. We will review doing so as soon as improvements are made to these roads.”

But it is not the first time the Royal Mail has provided a bizarre reason for disrupting deliveries. In November last year a postman refused to deliver to one address in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk after complaining that the resident’s garden was too overgrown. In another case in Portsmouth, a resident was warned he would his service suspended unless he took steps to keep his “aggressive cat” under control. Elsewhere postal workers have faced more traditional hazards with an entire street in Plymouth losing its service following an attack on a postman by a Jack Russell. (Source: Daily Telegraph, Nov/11)

The Royal Mail signalled fresh job losses after reporting a £120 million loss in its letters and parcels business following a huge slump in the number of people sending post. The daily postbag has fallen from 80 million five years ago to 62 million, a decline of 20%, with further reductions of 5% a year predicted. Chief executive Moya Greene, who is on a basic salary of £500,000, said the average person was spending just £18 a year on postage, highlighting the rise in texts, which now make up 50% of personal messaging, and emails.

The letters and parcels business is now losing £2 million a week, with losses for the 2010/11 financial year totalling £120 million compared with a £20 million profit in the previous year. The Royal Mail Group made an operating profit of £39 million, down from £180 million, with profits at the Post Office arm of the business declining from £33 million to £21 million as a result of lower revenues. The General Logistic Systems business, which delivers parcels across Europe, saw its profits rise by 5.3 per cent to £118 million in the last year.

Ms Greene, who received a bonus of £142,000 for 2010/11, said the Royal Mail was in the middle of 'very important' change, predicting further mail centre closures and job losses because of the decline in its business. Ms Greene, who moved from Canada to take over from previous chief executive Adam Crozier almost a year ago, said Royal Mail had been forced to transfer £1 billion of revenue to its competitors because of the regulatory regime it was forced to operate under. She said the organisation lost 2.5p for every letter it delivered for rival firms such as TNT and UK Mail.

Ms Greene has earned £637,000 since she took up the job last July, with pension payments on top, compared to the near £2.5 million paid to her predecessor in his final year, the Royal Mail revealed in its annual report. She received £350,000 of her £498,000 annual pay, a performance bonus of £142,000 and other benefits worth £145,000, including the cost of relocating from Canada. Adam Crozier, the former chief executive, received an annual salary of £633,000 in the last financial year, with a total payout of £2.4 million before he left on March 31 2010. (Source: Daily Mail, Jun/11)

The consumer watchdog Postwatch fears the biggest shake-up in Britain's postal service for more than 165 years has 'the makings of a mega-disaster'. For the first time, people sending anything through the post will have to think about the size and thickness, not just the weight. Postwatch fears the country's 14,400 post office will be hit by massive queues from people who are left confused by the changes. They will face the difficult choice of either standing in a queue to find out a price - or risk posting a letter with the wrong stamp on it.

A £10 million TV and newspaper advertising campaign began trying to explain the changes to millions of people who know nothing about them but the watchdog warns that at least £25 million should have been spent on such a fundamental campaign to explain the complicated changes. Royal Mail insists that just 15% of letters will be more expensive as a result of the changes, and 85% will be either the same price or cheaper. Royal Mail has added to the confusion by publishing mistakes in some of its leaflets going out to consumers. One leaflet, which was quickly withdrawn, said one gram equals 28 ounces, but the correct figures is 0.035 ounces.

At the moment, anything which weighs less than 60g can be posted first class anywhere from the Kent cost to a Scottish island for 32p but this is all set to change and the new rules are not easy to follow. There will now be three types of mail - a letter, a large letter and a packet. A letter must weigh less than 100g; be less than 5mm thick; and the size must not exceed 240mm x 165mm. If so, it will still cost the price of a standard first or second class stamp.

A large letter must weigh less than 750g; be less than 25mm thick; and the size must not exceed 353mmx250mm. If so, it will cost from 44p up to £1.31 to send first-class. Anything bigger is a packet and will cost from £1 if sent first-class. New booklets of 'Large Letter' stamps will be available to help people make sure they always have the right stamp for the right letter. A Royal Mail spokesman said, "Pricing in Proportion is a method of pricing that more closely reflects the cost of collecting, sorting and delivering mail weighing up to one kilogram." (Source: Mail on Sunday, Jul/06)

Royal Mail is paying out more than £1million a month in compensation for its failures, including settling vast numbers of claims for lost and damaged items. More than 800 claims a day are paid out for letters and packages that have been lost. There are another 80 a day for damaged parcels and 150 per day over delayed items. The £13.6million annual bill to settle claims represents the tip of the iceberg of Royal Mail failings because the company has become notorious for refusing to pay up over complaints. It received complaints and compensation claims for 651,582 lost items in the 2006-07 financial year, yet paid out on only 311,005.

The Federation of Small Business claims the decline in services has reached crisis point and is damaging the economy but customers' belief that standards are dropping as post charges rise have had no impact on the £1million-plus income of Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier, the former Football Association boss who is one of the highest paid public servants. The price of a first class stamp went up by 2p in April to 32p. It will go up to 34p next April, while further rises to 37p are in the pipeline. Similarly, second class stamps went up 2p in April to 23p and will rise to 24p in April. By April 2009 the cost will be 29p.

Royal Mail's reorganisation and automation plans, which will cost 40,000 jobs, will also include delaying the daily post to 60 per cent of homes and businesses until after midday. The proposals, which have angered consumers, will also mean postmen not delivering any normal mail before 10.30am. Royal Mail's £13,623,473 compensation bill for 2006-07 is likely to rocket in the current financial year because of industrial action by the Communication Workers Union, according to reports to the federation.

The consumer body, Postwatch, has in the past accused Royal Mail of "cheating" customers by failing to pay proper compensation when items are stolen. It was particularly worried that compensation was being refused even when customers paid more to send items "special delivery", which is supposed to guarantee a secure service. It emerged in June that Royal Mail auctions up to 75,000 items a year that have been lost in the post and not reunited with their owners.

Royal Mail confirmed that it sells off around 15% of items lost in the post. A spokesman said, "Each year 500,000 parcels are undeliverable because they are either incorrectly addressed or have no address or the intended recipient has moved. We do all we can to reunite them with their owners at a cost of £10million a year." The company said that complaints and compensation claims fell in 2006-07 and were around 200,000 fewer than the year before. (Source: Mail on Sunday, Aug/07)

Royal Mail's claims that nine out of 10 letters and parcels are delivered the next day have been thrown into doubt after an investigation caught staff "systematically" trying to fix performance figures. Postcomm, the postal regulator, found that countless workers, from postmen to area managers, were involved in a widespread operation to intercept mail sent out by an independent monitoring company. Staff worked out how to identify "test" letters posted to monitor deliveries, and gave them priority treatment to ensure they arrived on time. The scandal is thought to have been going on for at least eight years.

Senior bosses, including Adam Crozier, the chief executive, have been paid tens of thousands of pounds in bonuses based on the company's "service quality" figures, which include data on delivery times. Although there was no evidence that senior executives were aware of what was going on, a report by Postcomm said some managers "may have received bonus payments to which they were not entitled" since they were "based on recorded levels of quality of service which were incorrectly monitored and recorded".

The report also condemns Royal Mail's board for "significant corporate failings" in being ignorant of the problem, which came to light only after a whistle-blower contacted Postcomm. Several postal workers have been suspended and face disciplinary action. The regulator's findings are contained in a preliminary report, to which Royal Mail is entitled to respond before a final report in May. However, Postcomm said it was "minded" to find Royal Mail in breach of its operating licence, meaning the company could face a fine running into millions of pounds.

The Postcomm report said that following deregulation, which exposed Royal Mail to competition, "significant pressure was put on operational teams to improve performance". The cheats targeted items of "test" mail sent by 22,000 anonymous volunteers, or panellists, recruited by Research International, an independent market research company. The panellists sent mail to each other and recorded how long it took for items to arrive but the Postcomm report said postal workers could identify the test mail by feeling envelopes for a microchip they contained.

Managers at sorting offices then compiled computer spreadsheets of the addresses on the envelopes so that “key customers” could be given priority treatment, ensuring their mail arrived on time. The problem first came to light in Motherwell, Scotland, but investigators found evidence of the same technique being used nationwide and as long ago as 2002. The report said attempts to manipulate the performance figures had become “entrenched” in some areas, and “culturally ingrained” in others. Staff from different parts of the country were found to have swapped notes on how to beat the system or discussed ways of manipulating the market research in internet chat rooms.

Postcomm found that Royal Mail “failed to comply” with its licence because its performance testing system was so badly “flawed” and open to manipulation. The “serious and long-running failings” identified by Postcomm remained “current” because Royal Mail had not yet sorted out the problem. Despite the attempts to manipulate figures, Postcomm said it had not found “any material difference to Royal Mail’s published quality of service figures” as a result of the staff’s behaviour. A Royal Mail spokesman said there had been “no material impact whatsoever on Royal Mail’s quality of service figures” and welcomed Postcomm’s recognition of the company’s “full and open co-operation with the investigation”. (Source: Daily Telegraph, Mar/10)

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