POST OFFICE

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Britain's newest post office was opened with a great fanfare. Costing £1million and located in the heart of Exeter, it was equipped with all the latest technology. However, there was one small thing missing - a letterbox on the outside. The only way of posting a letter is to go inside the building to use the box in the foyer or another on the first floor but these are only accessible during opening hours. Embarrassed Royal Mail officials have been forced to apply for planning permission to site an old-fashioned pillar box outside the elegant glass frontage.

The Post Office said it wanted to have a postbox in the new building but had problems with the planners and developers. A Post Office spokesman said, "There are boxes on the ground floor and first floor and we are planning to put a box outside. We could not do it before because it would have got in the way of all the other building work. We are seeking planning permission for the box and checking with the utilities where we can put it and we expect it to be in place in six to eight weeks. It will be a free-standing box because the front of the building is of glass. In the meantime the area is not short of postboxes." (Source: Mail on Sunday, Apr/07)

Complaints about lost, damaged and late post have rocketed by more than 300% in two years and are likely to reach 40,000 by the end of 2004, according to figures from the independent postal service watchdog. Postwatch, the organisation set up to monitor Royal Mail, handled 28,000 complaints in 2003, up from just 6,300 in 2002, and said complaints in 2004 are already on course to reach 40,000. Of the 28,000 complaints handled by the watchdog in 2003, only 88 were about companies other than Royal Mail.

Officials said the failure of Royal Mail to hit any of its 15 performance targets was fuelling increases in complaints ranging from lost letters and parcels to problems with redirection. The number of complaints, contained in a National Audit Office report about the postal and energy watchdogs, will reignite anger about the standard of postal services after figures published this year suggested that 14.5 million letters are lost each year, with 60% delivered to the wrong address.

Royal Mail said its performance had improved after a "dip" earlier this year after its reorganisation of deliveries. The company insisted that figures showed that 92.4% of first class letters were delivered the next day, only just below the target of 92.5% and the best result for a year. Postwatch said some of the increase in complaints was due to the organisation's increasing public profile after its launch in 2000, but insisted that poor performance was fuelling anger among customers.

The complaint figures are likely to represent the tip of the iceberg, as the watchdog only deals with customers who are still dissatisfied after first complaining directly to Royal Mail. A spokeswoman said, "By the time they contact us they are angry. Generally people are loath to complain because they might get their postie in trouble, or sometimes they just want an acknowledgement or an apology. Some of this rise is because we have only been going since 2000 and people have to understand who we are, what we do. Royal Mail has failed to meet any of their standards of service for a good while."

She urged more people to complain about services. "Complaining is a good way of giving Royal Mail customer feedback," she said. Malcolm Bruce, the Liberal Democrat trade and industry spokesman, said, "This is an appalling indictment but unfortunately entirely consistent with Royal Mail's record in recent years. An organisation which fails all 15 of its performance targets is likely to generate an avalanche of complaints. The taxpayer ends up paying twice for the failure of Royal Mail, once for its losses and reduced profitability and again for the increased cost of funding Postwatch."

A spokesman for Royal Mail said the company handled 1.6 million calls to its telephone hotline in 2003, but stressed that many of those calls were inquiries about services rather than complaints. He insisted that the company had made customer service "our number one priority" and said services were improving after problems moving to single deliveries earlier in 2004. The spokesman said, "Improving our quality of service is our number one priority. There was a dip earlier this year when there were major changes in our operation."

The Royal Mail was fined £7.5m when it failed to meet the 15 targets in 2003 and will hear later whether it faces a further fine for breaching its licence. It has already paid £50m in compensation to customers for service disruption after industrial action in 2003. (Source: The Independent)

UK postal services could be opened to full competition 15 months earlier than previously intended under new plans. Royal Mail should face competition in the delivery of all post from 1 January 2006, regulator Postcomm has said. From that date, any licensed operator would be able to deliver mail to business and residential customers. Royal Mail, which controls 99% of the market, and other postal suppliers welcomed the announcement but unions attacked the move as "vandalism".

Postcomm said it wanted to increase choice for consumers while making it easier for new suppliers to enter the market. Under proposals which will go out for consultation, Royal Mail would be given greater commercial freedom to compete in a deregulated market including financial rewards for meeting efficiency and delivery targets. Postcomm said the proposals would safeguard the future of a universal post service.

However, the Communications Workers Union said that postal services would not improve if private firms made huge profits out of postal services. "We know that these proposals will, in the main, be warmly welcomed by Royal Mail's emerging competitors, and by major postal users," said Postcomm chairman Nigel Stapleton. "Postcomm remains fully committed to ensuring the continued viability of the universal post service."

Royal Mail insisted it could succeed in an open market. "Customers deserve real choice in an open market, not postal chaos," said chief executive Adam Crozier. "There has to be careful licensing of new entrants to ensure customers interests are protected to avoid a free for all with customers left to find their way among potentially dozens of rivals with varying quality of service."

Competition was introduced in the postal market in 2002, when bulk mail deliveries were opened up to suppliers other than Royal Mail. However, this has made little impact on Royal Mail's monopoly of the business. A second stage of competition, which would have seen 30% of the market opened to competition by April 2005, would be scrapped under Postcomm's proposals. This would give Royal Mail an extra nine months to prepare for liberalisation of the market.