DM26 - Attention of Martin Walsh

[I-POSTIE]

Fiasco 26

“When the architect wants to build a house which is stable, he begins by digging out… anything resting on or mixed with the sand, so that he can lay his foundations on firm soil.”
— René Descartes

Origin & Flawed Premise

- DM26 is not a comprehensive, ground-up redesign built on fresh analysis. Instead, it is a hasty, reactive fix—driven by public and government criticism of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and pressured demands for faster profits.
- Rather than laying new "solid foundations," it has been thrown together on top of the outdated, previous delivery system—directly contradicting a careful, foundational approach.

Real-World Changes Ignored by the New Model

Between the last major delivery restructuring and 2026, the nature of the job has shifted dramatically:
- Letter volumes have declined, but parcel/packet volumes have grown sharply—accelerated by COVID-19, which pushed even internet-cautious customers into online ordering, a habit that has persisted.
- Deliveries now require far more time waiting at doorsteps for recipients, plus additional duties: pillar-box collections and customer parcel collections.
- Yet DM26 was built on delivery patterns and workload assumptions roughly a decade out of date.

Consequences of the Mismatch

- Many delivery rounds are now too heavy, too long, and physically impossible to complete within official duty hours.
- The old work-allocation formulas no longer apply—staff are being measured and managed against standards that no longer reflect reality.
- Offices that previously coped well are now falling into backlogs, and service quality is declining—defeating the very purpose DM26 was supposedly created to achieve.

Why Management Failed to Properly Redesign

- Lack of time: Management want to be seen acting immediately, with no window to do a full, proper review of all delivery areas nationwide.
- The unspoken, real reason: A proper, evidence-based review would expose the severe understaffing across the network—too few employees covering too much ground and too much work.
- Instead of fixing the root problem, management are layering a confusing, overcomplicated new system onto the broken old one—piling extra burden onto already overstretched staff.

Conclusion

DM26 is fundamentally flawed: it addresses symptoms rather than causes, avoids confronting chronic understaffing, and imposes an ill-fitting, rushed framework that harms both workforce morale and the service customers rely on.

 

[toonshola]

Fiasco 26

“When the architect wants to build a house which is stable, he begins by digging out… anything resting on or mixed with the sand, so that he can lay his foundations on firm soil.”
— René Descartes

Origin & Flawed Premise

- DM26 is not a comprehensive, ground-up redesign built on fresh analysis. Instead, it is a hasty, reactive fix—driven by public and government criticism of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and pressured demands for faster profits.
- Rather than laying new "solid foundations," it has been thrown together on top of the outdated, previous delivery system—directly contradicting a careful, foundational approach.

Real-World Changes Ignored by the New Model

Between the last major delivery restructuring and 2026, the nature of the job has shifted dramatically:
- Letter volumes have declined, but parcel/packet volumes have grown sharply—accelerated by COVID-19, which pushed even internet-cautious customers into online ordering, a habit that has persisted.
- Deliveries now require far more time waiting at doorsteps for recipients, plus additional duties: pillar-box collections and customer parcel collections.
- Yet DM26 was built on delivery patterns and workload assumptions roughly a decade out of date.

Consequences of the Mismatch

- Many delivery rounds are now too heavy, too long, and physically impossible to complete within official duty hours.
- The old work-allocation formulas no longer apply—staff are being measured and managed against standards that no longer reflect reality.
- Offices that previously coped well are now falling into backlogs, and service quality is declining—defeating the very purpose DM26 was supposedly created to achieve.

Why Management Failed to Properly Redesign

- Lack of time: Management want to be seen acting immediately, with no window to do a full, proper review of all delivery areas nationwide.
- The unspoken, real reason: A proper, evidence-based review would expose the severe understaffing across the network—too few employees covering too much ground and too much work.
- Instead of fixing the root problem, management are layering a confusing, overcomplicated new system onto the broken old one—piling extra burden onto already overstretched staff.

Conclusion

DM26 is fundamentally flawed: it addresses symptoms rather than causes, avoids confronting chronic understaffing, and imposes an ill-fitting, rushed framework that harms both workforce morale and the service customers rely on.

 

You have absolutely nailed it. I think this DM26 model would have been a roaring success around 8-10 years ago before the parcels got out of control. You absolutely would have saved s**t loads of time covering just the first class and parcels on half the delivery back then where as now you are still covering most the ground on the “light” side anyway with the mental amount of tracked we now get daily.
My van share took around 4.40 pre DM26 and with the new model it now takes around 4.20, a massive saving of around 20 minutes. Rm in their wisdom thinks this 20 minute saving gives us almost 2 hours to complete the two thirds of nonsense off the other frames. It doesn’t add up, Martin Walsh should resign in disgrace for thinking this is possible.

[norris9]

There are so many inefficiency issues within Royal Mail offices in general even without worrying about how DM26 functions. Unfortunately, at least from what I've seen, local management have no interest in fixing the obvious issues. They are more interested in managing through bullying and harassment than logically making the necessary changes to make things run more smoothly.

[Barnacle]

There are so many inefficiency issues within Royal Mail offices in general even without worrying about how DM26 functions. Unfortunately, at least from what I've seen, local management have no interest in fixing the obvious issues. They are more interested in managing through bullying and harassment than logically making the necessary changes to make things run more smoothly.

Exactly this. There needs to be a clear out of utterly incompetent, lazy, bullying, managers

[BenacreNick]

So we are now up to 12 pages and many many questions for Mr Walsh to respond to.

He is going to be up all night I reckon.

[SpacePhoenix]

Fiasco 26

“When the architect wants to build a house which is stable, he begins by digging out… anything resting on or mixed with the sand, so that he can lay his foundations on firm soil.”
— René Descartes

Origin & Flawed Premise

- DM26 is not a comprehensive, ground-up redesign built on fresh analysis. Instead, it is a hasty, reactive fix—driven by public and government criticism of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and pressured demands for faster profits.
- Rather than laying new "solid foundations," it has been thrown together on top of the outdated, previous delivery system—directly contradicting a careful, foundational approach.

Real-World Changes Ignored by the New Model

Between the last major delivery restructuring and 2026, the nature of the job has shifted dramatically:
- Letter volumes have declined, but parcel/packet volumes have grown sharply—accelerated by COVID-19, which pushed even internet-cautious customers into online ordering, a habit that has persisted.
- Deliveries now require far more time waiting at doorsteps for recipients, plus additional duties: pillar-box collections and customer parcel collections.
- Yet DM26 was built on delivery patterns and workload assumptions roughly a decade out of date.

Consequences of the Mismatch

- Many delivery rounds are now too heavy, too long, and physically impossible to complete within official duty hours.
- The old work-allocation formulas no longer apply—staff are being measured and managed against standards that no longer reflect reality.
- Offices that previously coped well are now falling into backlogs, and service quality is declining—defeating the very purpose DM26 was supposedly created to achieve.

Why Management Failed to Properly Redesign

- Lack of time: Management want to be seen acting immediately, with no window to do a full, proper review of all delivery areas nationwide.
- The unspoken, real reason: A proper, evidence-based review would expose the severe understaffing across the network—too few employees covering too much ground and too much work.
- Instead of fixing the root problem, management are layering a confusing, overcomplicated new system onto the broken old one—piling extra burden onto already overstretched staff.

Conclusion

DM26 is fundamentally flawed: it addresses symptoms rather than causes, avoids confronting chronic understaffing, and imposes an ill-fitting, rushed framework that harms both workforce morale and the service customers rely on.

 

You have absolutely nailed it. I think this DM26 model would have been a roaring success around 8-10 years ago before the parcels got out of control. You absolutely would have saved s**t loads of time covering just the first class and parcels on half the delivery back then where as now you are still covering most the ground on the “light” side anyway with the mental amount of tracked we now get daily.
My van share took around 4.40 pre DM26 and with the new model it now takes around 4.20, a massive saving of around 20 minutes. Rm in their wisdom thinks this 20 minute saving gives us almost 2 hours to complete the two thirds of nonsense off the other frames. It doesn’t add up, Martin Walsh should resign in disgrace for thinking this is possible.

Any time now the data from packet sorting machines and flat sorting machines will feed into the DTS algorithm, probably only a mater of time before manual packet scanning data also feeds into the algorithm. I think at some point something will get brought in to capture similar data for manual letters and flats.

[GRS]

Anyone who thinks that the union meticulously designed this method of delivery is seriously deluded. This way of working has been designed by using AI. Hence why no one from either RM or the Union has one jot of an idea of how it works and have simply said to each unit “it’s up to you to make it work. That is why it is so complicated and unworkable because no normal human can get their head around the logic of it!!!!!!!!!!!

[TopperGas]

You have to sense somebody in senior management has decided they need to save £xm by cutting x% of staff and left the next level of management to come up with a plan which could be introduced with minimal delay.

It seems in our DO that DM26 has been designed around loosing x% of staff and nothing else, now it's up to the staff left to try and make it work. It possibly works if we have no sickness or staff leaving and the post/Tracked levels stay around the present levels, unfortunately neither is going to happen by Christmas unless we take on loads of additional agency staff it'll be carnage.

[Barnacle]

Managers have lost their minds. They have no idea what they are doing