Royal Mail fails the Christmas card test

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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40% of first class deliveries don't reach their destination on time.

Today we can reveal the Royal Mail lottery which can see first class Christmas cards take up to four days to arrive in some areas but just one in others.

The cost of delivering a standard letter soared to 60p for first class and 50p for second class last May. But we have discovered that customers receive wildly different levels of service depending on where they live.

Our investigation also found examples where the newly-privatised postal operator fell well short of industry standards.

Last night consumer groups hit out.

Martin Forsythe, campaign manager of Save Our Royal Mail, said: “This shows Royal Mail is failing its customers.

“Research from postal regulator Ofcom shows that four in 10 postcodes are not receiving first class letters on time.

“Now the Royal Mail has been privatised and is returning record profits to shareholders, the company must invest and improve the quality of service customers receive.

“The taxpayer has already been ripped off by the Government selling the company on the cheap and this adds insult to injury.”

Ofcom expects Royal Mail to deliver first class items within one working day 93% of the time between January and November. For second class mail it’s 98% within three working days.

But there are no targets between December 2 and 31.

To test their Christmas service, our reporters fired off 20 cards in both classes to examine the difference in their arrival time. The results were alarming.

In six out of 10 of cases the first class cards arrived at their destination within one working day. In another three, cards to Edinburgh, Newcastle and Colchester, Essex, took two days.

However, a card sent to South Queensferry — 40 miles from where we posted it in Glasgow — took four working days to get there.

That was two days later than our second class card arrived in nearby Dunfermline. And, remarkably, the first class card to Colchester arrived at the same time as the second class one.

In six of the examples where we sent cards with second class stamps, they took just two working days to arrive. But three cards took more than three days.

Watchdog Consumer Futures said Royal Mail’s first class service over the festive period had been steadily declining.

During Christmas 2008/09, nearly 67% of first class post arrived within one working day. But last year that had dipped to 55%.

And in the Christmas of 2010/11, with the country crippled by snow, just one in three deliveries arrived within the one day target.

The organisation’s director for Scotland, Trisha McAuley, said: “It’s really important people have confidence that their mail will be delivered in good time.

“We know that last Christmas, more than 90% of items sent using second class stamps arrived within three days, compared to only just over a half of items sent first class

arriving the next day.

“For value for money, we always urge people to post early and use the cheaper second class post.”

However Julie Pirone, of the Royal Mail, said our findings do not “represent an accurate estimate of performance” in Scotland.

She said a major independent survey showed 94.3% of first class mail sent from Glasgow and 93.5% from Edinburgh was arriving by the next working day.

“At this time of year Royal Mail deals with a huge increase of letters, cards and parcels, with Glasgow expecting to deal with 2.8 million items on its busiest day this week.

“The workload doubles and we work extremely hard to ensure we deliver every item of mail during the Christmas period.

“No other postal operator has the same level of service to adhere to.”

A spokeswoman for Ofcom said: “We wrote to Royal Mail earlier this year for failing to make their first class targets and asked them to improve.

“We will wait until the end of the financial year before deciding what to do. In December they have no targets.

“But in reality, Royal Mail still needs to continue to push mail through the pipeline as quickly as possible.”

This year, the last posting date for second class mail is December 18. For first class it is December 20 and, for its “special delivery guaranteed” service, it’s December 23.

[blue1873]

Ms. Pirone, today i received a 1st class xmas card posted in Glasgow on Thurs 12th
about 5 miles away from the Mail Centre.I live about 3 miles from MC in the opposite
direction, 8 miles in total ,4 days to get here Ms. Pirone your talking mince.

[cheffie]

It might speed up if people used the correct address on their cards and not just guess numbers or post codes

[Judgee]

I wonder how many of these cards were written out in full and were legible? Many of the cards I have seen this year have no postcode and seemed to have been written out by doctors!

I know Christmas is a time for miracles but a bit more common sense on behalf of the senders would probably be a more realistic approach!

[daveyeff]

'soared' to 60p.,,,,,SIXTY PEE!!!!, lets see how far anyone could get on a bus for that.

[srilfc2013]

It might speed up if people used the correct address on their cards and not just guess numbers or post codes

[fishtank]

Can anyone explain to me why it's so important that some crappy Christmas card from someone you met once in Marbella gets there in 2,3,4 or 5 days?
If you don't want to pay 1st class prices for what is effectively at Christmas a second class service then buy some second class stamps and send your cards earlier.
There that wasn't so hard was it?
Next question?

[Shaman Mao]

No mention of the amount of time we spend trying to figure out where Xmas cards with half an address should go. My favourites are the ones with just a first name and street (if we're lucky). Most of them get there eventually.

[eian687]

just started doing a rural round 20 mile round trip, 2 small villages and some edge of town streets . half the cards i am getting only have village name on no house name or number, keep having to ask old duty holder, good job he didn't retire

[Pinky 1]

just started doing a rural round 20 mile round trip, 2 small villages and some edge of town streets . half the cards i am getting only have village name on no house name or number, keep having to ask old duty holder, good job he didn't retire

Welcome to the world of the rural postie

[parcelboy]

Xmas pressure 1991 First Class first feed in second one delivery S/A heavy days everybody happy on cycles and it worked.No problems with QOS.Extra vans for parcels.And yes it made money lots and gave Goverment percentage.Yes i witnessed this and the decline and the greed that followed.Good luck with latest deal folks.Nice to see they dealt with the biggest problem B+H what a joke RM +CWU shame on you.

[P13]

Xmas pressure 1991 First Class first feed in second one delivery S/A heavy days everybody happy on cycles and it worked.No problems with QOS.Extra vans for parcels.And yes it made money lots and gave Goverment percentage.Yes i witnessed this and the decline and the greed that followed.Good luck with latest deal folks.Nice to see they dealt with the biggest problem B+H what a joke RM +CWU shame on you.

Only a small minority of staff have ever used cycles in Royal Mail most staff were lugging around huge bags on their backs

[Darren Bent]

OF course it will get worse - More temporary staff, more incorrect postal address/missing postcode will mess thing up. We depend too much on WS sorting machine as there is less experienced staff sorting, plus walk get bigger and we can't do the job effectively anymore especially in december.

Plus lot of parcels and door to door which add pressure to delivery staff.

[bogstandard]

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But there are no targets between December 2 and 31.

[cheffie]

Got a card this am with a surcharge sticker on it for £1.50 for not having a stamp on it the card had 2 Christian names and half a post code!!!!!!!