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'Most impacted' DOs - what is going on?

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youngoffender
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'Most impacted' DOs - what is going on?

Post by youngoffender »

Today (Tues 21st) Royal Mail's Service Updates page lists 31 DOs around the country that are 'most impacted' by 'local issues such as high levels of sick absence, resourcing, or other local factors.' The number of offices on the list has grown substantially in the last week - there were only 9 on the list yesterday. And that's just those that are reporting a problem.

Can anyone shed any light on the reasons for this sudden collapse? It's not as if we are in another wave of COVID or flu - national health is much better than it was a month ago, when deliveries were getting back to normal.
TrueBlueTerrier
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Re: 'Most impacted' DOs - what is going on?

Post by TrueBlueTerrier »

I have to be careful here as I am a serving postie, and I don't know for each specific office, but my guess is the rushed revisions that are being implemented throughout the country, some with CWU involvement (recently) and others that were done without local knowledge being taken into account.
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fb1969
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Re: 'Most impacted' DOs - what is going on?

Post by fb1969 »

I'm an ex postie but still in contact with those where I worked. Another issue is deliberate under-manning of delivery offices

The office i left 6 months ago has 67 delivery rounds which meant around 95 posties were needed to cover days off etc.

When I left around 6 months ago, I created the 8th unfilled vacancy. No one new had started in the 6 months before left.

Since I left the number of vacancies is now nearly 20 and still no recruitment has taken place. If you search the RM website for vacancies you will find very few, and they are mainly in Scotland. Use the job title "postperson" to check.

This week in my old office has just 27 duties out of 67 that are fully covered on every day. It has 6 duties that are not covered on any day. It has several paired rounds that will be alternated on which round is delivered each day. Around a third of the posties are working their day off, without that the figures would be even worse. A lot work their day off because if they didn't they'd get a double load the next day, some need the overtime money but many don't really want the extra 8-10 miles walking.

The real truth is the RM do not care about their level of service. They are deliberately trashing the delivery of letters and prioritising delivery of parcels.
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simmo11
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Re: 'Most impacted' DOs - what is going on?

Post by simmo11 »

I believe TruBlu has hit it on the head but I don't see how Royal Mail (IE the hierarchy) can justify this.

It's not Christmas, there have been no strikes this year and there is not COVID to contend with.

There are no exacerbating circumstances and the regulator should be all over this.

Kudos to the hardworking posties who are having so much sh*t thrown their way at the moment due to mismanagement.
youngoffender
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Re: 'Most impacted' DOs - what is going on?

Post by youngoffender »

Thanks all for your insights. It seems to me that senior management at Royal Mail have made a deeply cynical calculation - that the cost of properly resourcing DOs to deliver on the USO is greater than the cost of any eventual fine from its useless regulator, so they are happy to let the service collapse. The recent parliamentary committee suggested a culture of mendacity and contempt for the customer that goes right to the top, and I hope Ofcom will at last launch a thorough investigation.