Postmen turn detective

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Laura Stanley finds out about the new partnership between charity Missing People and the Royal Mail's 124,000 postmen and women

It was as postman Vincent Micallef was delivering the mail to a nursery in East London that he learned a young, local girl had gone missing. He immediately rang around his colleagues, knowing they were out on the streets and could prove a significant asset in widening the search for the missing girl.

Luckily, she was later found by the police but for Micallef the whole episode started a chain of ideas. Were there other missing people who could be found just by opening the Royal Mail’s communication channels?

The question he posed has today been answered. From this month, in a groundbreaking collaboration with charity Missing People, postmen and women across the country will receive alerts via their handheld Postal Digital Assistants (PDAs), which are usually used to track and sign for deliveries, when someone has gone missing in their area. The alert will issue a description of the missing person, a link to their photo and provide a number to ring should there be a sighting.

Micallef initially contacted the Metropolitan Police and Missing People, as well as talking with Royal Mail’s senior management to see if his idea could work.

Fortunately, Royal Mail is a company open to hearing new ideas. Four years ago, chief executive Moya Greene launched the ‘Just Say It’ scheme, allowing employees to email their suggestions directly to her for consideration. And Courier, Royal Mail’s in-house publication, also features a monthly Letterbox section, publishing letters and questions from postal workers and responses from the relevant managers who have the answers. Alternatively, employees like Micallef can speak to their line manager and ideas can filter through a more traditional route.

For Royal Mail’s community investment manager Gary Grange, Micallef’s idea offered a great opportunity to emphasise the postman’s role in the local community. Royal Mail postmen and women work six days a week across the whole country.

He explains: ‘As a business, we’re always looking to see how we can improve how we work in the community. This was a no-brainer.’

Clare Cook, head of campaigns at Missing People, the only UK charity that specialises in reuniting missing children and adults with their families, was also thrilled with the suggestion, adding: ‘We completely leapt at the opportunity.’

The partnership has also provided a boost to the charity’s new Child Rescue Alert app, launched in June. In the first six months after launch, it had been downloaded by just 58,000 people, a number which was more than doubled after it featured on Good Morning Britain last month, with support from Paul and Coral Jones, whose daughter April was abducted and murdered two years ago.

By collaborating with the Royal Mail, Missing People has added yet another 124,000 pairs of eyes and ears to their arsenal, making it that much easier to locate a missing person when the time comes.

A further 24,000 people will receive the alerts via computer and TV screens across Royal Mail offices. Kate McCann, mother of Madeleine who went missing in 2007, has also shown her support for the app and is firmly behind the Royal Mail partnership. On 18 November, postal workers watched a recorded message from her broadcast across more than 1,800 screens tuned in to their internal television network. It is the first time a company has opened its entire internal communications system to a charity.

‘We’ve already got the technology, it’s just using it,’ says Grange. ‘It’s about using the assets we have to benefit the communities in which we operate.’

Every five minutes, a child in the UK goes missing. Most are found safe and well. But statistics show that the initial hours after a child is abducted are crucial. When a child goes missing and their life is believed to be in danger, the Child Rescue Alert will send an urgent alert to users’ smartphones from Missing People and the National Crime Agency. The technology that allows them to do this was donated by Groupcall, a communications company co-founded by Sir Bob Geldof.

The charity has also maintained a two-year-long relationship with the Outdoor Media Centre, the trade association for outdoor media owners. The Centre donates any unused advertising space on their digital billboards to Missing

People, allowing them to display the details of any missing person and tailor it to the location where they were last seen. Since the partnership was launched in August 2012, more than 200 missing people have been found through the billboard appeals.

The collaboration with Royal Mail, then, should be nothing new to a charity which has already learnt the benefits of teaming up with others. In fact, Missing People and Royal Mail appear to be quite natural bedfellows.

‘We’re unique in the sense that we have people out all the time in the community,’ says Grange. ‘I don’t think anyone would have the same reach in terms of people on the ground.’

The company is very keen to make sure that these people, their employees, are with them every step of the way. The Communication Workers Union (CWU), which supports 134,000 postal workers across the UK, has been kept consistently well-informed regarding the implementation of the scheme. But Micallef is also a representative, and the union has offered its backing for the scheme.

Grange concedes that, in an organisation the size of the Royal Mail, there may be one or two dissenters. ‘They don’t have to do anything – in that sense it’s voluntary,’ says Grange. ‘But they will receive the messages.’

The Missing People alerts will be delivered to every PDA system in the affected area, and though actively searching for a person is not forced, or even enforceable, the Royal Mail does encourage its workers to open all messages that come through the PDAs.

‘Internally we feel we can deliver it,’ explains Grange. ‘I am convinced our people will embrace this and do all they can to find a missing person.’

Cook agrees: ‘Postmen and women are the right people to be out there, knowing about missing vulnerable people. It has had a huge impact on the charity. In one fell swoop, it has doubled our amount of eyes and ears.’

With the decision made to join forces, the only thing standing in their way was logistical issues, which were ironed out after months of discussions. Grange was quite clear that, if the initiative was going to be really effective, clear parameters would have to be set. Instead of being inundated with messages, postmen and women will only receive alerts about missing people deemed to be high risk, including the very old, the very young and people with mental health issues.

With new PDA technology being rolled out in the near future, Grange and his team also had to make sure they would be able to sustain the ability to receive the missing people alerts. For instance, Grange hopes that new software will allow postmen to view pictures directly on their PDA monitors, instead of via a link which they can currently only access through their smartphones.

But with 306,000 people recorded as missing in 2012/13 (one every two minutes), the news that 124,000 people will be joining the search is still going to be music to most families’ ears.

‘Even if people aren’t found, what the charity does and what we hope will happen with this initiative is that it will give families around the UK hope,’ says Grange.

‘It does feel like a tipping point for the charity,’ adds Cook. ‘It is the biggest partnership of this nature. It will be great to see the results.’

[masterblaster]

'postmen and women across the country will receive alerts via their handheld Postal Digital Assistants (PDAs),'

Good idea but:-
I don't have time (so never do) read dictates from office staff with nothing to contribute towards productivity.

[Surreypostie]

Same here, don't read the messages. I'm not knocking it as an idea though but I won't be finding any missing people.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Could I suggest reading them, we had deliveries cancelled recently, while actually out on delivery. If you didn't read the message you would probably be the only people still out in the cold.

[Lounge Lizard]

I only read the messages after it starts snowing. Wouldn't want to miss finishing early for a or two.

[Surreypostie]

Could I suggest reading them, we had deliveries cancelled recently, while actually out on delivery. If you didn't read the message you would probably be the only people still out in the cold.

Us softy southerners don't get deliveries cancelled, bit of frost is the worst we ever get. All we get is the patronising message informing you its almost 1pm. Ignore the thing beeping at me now. A couple of us have had phone calls on them from PPI claim firms. WTF