Four million letters delayed in the post

[Geezer]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ikers.html

By Olinka Koster
Last updated at 12:36 AM on 10th August 2009



Millions of letters are being delivered late, but Royal Mail claimed last night it was beating the wave of postal strikes across the country.

It said preliminary figures showed it was hitting its delivery targets, despite a series of walkouts over the last two months.

But an estimated four million letters are still failing to arrive on time, leading to frustration for customers and a loss of confidence among business users.
Unbelievable: Despite late delivery of millions of letters, Royal Mail insists it is hitting delivery targets

Unbelievable: Despite late delivery of millions of letters, Royal Mail insists it is hitting delivery targets

Today marks the third day of the latest campaign of widespread action that threatens to disrupt deliveries well into August.

Royal Mail said first class performance has been ahead of its target of 93 per cent deliveries the next working day. Some 93.9 per cent were on time in the five weeks to mid-July.

Second class post, which should see items arriving within three working days, was also on target, with 98.5 per cent of mail arriving within three working days. Almost all business mail services hit or beat their targets.

But with around 80million items sent each day, it means more than four million do not arrive in time.

The postal watchdog Consumer Focus said: 'These figures look like good news superficially, but we need to look into the detail to get the whole picture.'

The summer of strikes has been called over jobs, pay and modernisation.

Paul Tolhurst, operations director at Royal Mail, said the figures proved that contingency plans to ease the impact of strikes had been effective.

More than 90 per cent of employees have been working normally despite the industrial action.

He said: 'We are sorry that some customers faced disruption because of strike action by the Communication Workers Union but we remain determined to do everything possible to ease the impact. We again urge the CWU to call off its plans for further strike action and stop blocking change and modernisation.

'The CWU is not only failing to live up to the 2007 pay and modernisation agreement but is actively opposing change on the ground.'

CWU deputy general secretary Dave Ward accused Royal Mail of 'trying to crush' the postal service.

'Postal workers and customers are experiencing cuts to services, cuts to hours, cuts to jobs and threats over future jobs and services,' he said. 'This is just downsizing, there's nothing modern about it.'

The dispute comes as Royal Mail faces a fine of up to £40million over claims that managers rigged research to give a false impression about the efficiency of deliveries.

Staff are accused of manipulating an independent study designed to find out whether mail is delivered promptly at the correct address.

As a result, senior staff were able to claim big bonuses for apparently running a successful service.

Last year, a study by the former watchdog, Postwatch, depicted a service that was failing consumers. It said millions were unhappy that their post was not arriving until the afternoon.

Strikes in 2007 caused a serious slump in standards and the organisation failed to hit nine of its 12 minimum service targets.

Tens of millions of letters were delayed or lost and the reliability of the first-class service fell to 85.2 per cent.

In 2006, record-breaking results showed that 94.5 per cent of all first- class mail arrived the next working day.

But they were said to have been reached partly as a result of controversial changes to collection and delivery times.

[steven100]

Its not surprising that the mail is failing, too many cuts, too long a walks and too high a sickness rate. This leading to a poorer service.
In the end they blame the union and lazy workers.

[DGP1]

But with around 80million items sent each day, it means more than four million do not arrive in time.

I thought mail volumes where down?