Late post leads to missed medical appointments, imperils democracy and compounds grief and heartache
Getting letters delivered by Royal Mail seems to be nearly impossible for my constituents judging by the message they are sending me, so I should hardly be surprised that the company has not yet replied to the email I sent them on Friday 2 June about their service standards.
To compound things even more, a large part of my message to Royal Mail (to read it, click here) re-asked questions about staffing, capacity and pressures the company face, which they failed to address in a reply to a message I sent them back in March.
A pattern of non-answers and inaccuracies from Royal Mail is quite clear to see.
Yet my constituents are experiencing very real problems with post deliveries, causing them to miss hospital appointments because letters do not turn up in time, as well as the delays compounding grief and heartache.
This was the case for the mother who received beautiful letters meant for her adult son. He never got to see them because they arrived after he had died.
A bundle of post my constituent received after her son’s death also contained the order of service for the funeral which had taken place weeks before.
Furthermore, with reports about a significant increase in postal votes being delivered late in the recent local council elections in May, and therefore not being counted, post delays have the potential to impact on our democratic processes.
The lack of courtesy shown by Royal Mail by their non-response and silence on this serious issue speaks volumes.
Yet alarmingly, this attitude appears to be something that runs deep at Royal Mail, with the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee calling Royal Mail’s chief executive, Simon Thompson, back to a parliamentary meeting because of concerns raised about inaccuracies in his earlier testimony.
Some of the evidence discussed at the recent select committee meeting included examples of bar charts being displayed in delivery offices to compare the “stand still” time gathered via the tracking devices (postal delivery assistants PDAs) used.
While the use of tracking devices is something discussed with CWU (Communication Workers Union), using data in this way breaches any agreement in place over the use of tracking technology.
Furthermore, there have been multiple posters displayed in some delivery offices stating that it’s ok to deliver letters the next day and that postal workers need to “focus on tracked and special delivery items”.
And it’s at senior management level where the problems appear to lie, with reports of postal workers under pressure to prioritise parcels over letters and with questions being raised about the “toxic” working environment.
With Ofcom currently investigating Royal Mail’s failure to meet its delivery targets in 2022-23, it’s vital that regulators take action.
In Brighton, Royal Mail was way off its delivery targets, which will come as no surprise to many of my constituents. In quarter three last year, first class stamped deliveries fell to just 44.1 per cent of its 93 per cent target.
I opposed the privatisation of Royal Mail, a proposal mooted around by Gordon Brown in the dying days of the previous Labour government, which was pursued and voted through by the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition that followed.
Vince Cable MP boldly stated at the time: “The best way of reassuring the public is to demolish some of the myths. The fact is that the universal service obligation was clearly underwritten by Parliament. It is embedded in legislation and cannot be removed.”
With the company now run for profit and for the benefit of shareholders, Royal Mail is far from the six-day-a-week universal postal service the government promised when they chose to privatise it.
The Royal Mail offices in North Road in Brighton
While it’s good that Ofcom is investigating the shocking state of Royal Mail, it’s not enough. The core justification of the then government’s privatisation plan was that the universal service obligation would be protected. With that promise broken, there needs to be some accountability.
Back in 2014, Vince Cable was recalled to Parliament after a National Audit Office report found that the sale of Royal Mail cost the taxpayer £750 million. The whole thing stinks.
Since privatisation, Royal Mail’s track record on affordability, quality and the fair treatment of workers has been badly undermined. For this reason, I added my name to this “early day motion”.
The motion condemned Royal Mail’s continued attack on jobs while shareholders receive £311 million in rewards.
I also asked this parliamentary question challenging the proposal to reduce Royal Mail staff by 10,000, as well as this question about the Royal Mail Group’s dividends.
And I fully supported the 100,000 Royal Mail postal workers who engaged in strike action to protest about low pay and poor working conditions, as you can see by my support for this early day motion.
To read some of the problems that constituents have raised with me in recent weeks, click here and scroll down.
With Royal Mail management remaining tight-lipped on the scale of the problems with local deliveries in Brighton and Hove, I will be highlighting my ongoing concerns to ministers and with Ofcom.
Caroline Lucas is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on her website carolinelucas.com.
