The Times view on Royal Mail's Declining standards

[simmo11]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the- ... -rrm5zfbq8

In a world where citizens’ interactions with the state, the economy and each other have increasingly moved online, it is easy to forget that the post still contains serious business. Many rely on mail for time-critical documents like NHS appointment letters, bills, tax notices and fines that spawn court summonses when ignored. If these letters are missed, that is more than a trifling inconvenience. One cancer patient recently told The Times that letters from his doctor had arrived after he was expected to attend appointments.
Such delays are too frequent. Royal Mail is required to deliver 93 per cent of first-class post within one working day of collection and 98.5 per cent of second-class post within three working days. The company failed to hit its delivery targets in every UK postcode this summer. In the worst-performing postcode, a mere 57.5 per cent of first-class mail was delivered on time.

Behind the numbers are countless stories of woe. In recent days several readers have written to this newspaper’s letters page in exasperation, citing unreasonably early final collections and interminable delays. One reader observes that a Royal Mail apology was inadvertently insightful: “please be assured that we take letting our customers down seriously”.
It is no wonder that Ofcom, Royal Mail’s regulator, is investigating whether the company has breached its legal duties, and how much it should be fined if so. The failings are more than a blip, after all. Royal Mail has not hit its targets for first and second-class mail since 2016-17. Ofcom let the operator off without a fine last year because of “exceptional events” that had made its job harder. The hands-on aspects of the operation were difficult while social-distancing rules were in place, and staff absence levels rose as posties caught Covid-19.

However, the regulator has sensibly warned that Royal Mail cannot continue to use the pandemic as an excuse. In any case the surge in online ordering during that period, and a busy trade in distributing test kits, had their advantages for postal services. That boom is unlikely to return any time soon, and Royal Mail reported losses this year, but there will be limits to public sympathy for its financial position, given that Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distributions Services, has paid £477 million in dividends to shareholders since March 2021. Nor will the public’s affection be boosted by the recent 15p jump in the price of a first-class stamp to £1.10, an increase greater than consumer price inflation.

None of this is to deny the commercial pressure on the business. Servicing postcodes across the country is an expensive exercise, and all the more so with a highly unionised workforce: a long- running battle with the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) ended with a deal in July on a 10 per cent salary increase over three years. It is difficult to keep up revenues as more correspondence moves out of the postbox and into the cloud. Growing competition from couriers has presented challenges too.

The inescapable reality, however, is that Royal Mail has obligations to the public that it is consistently failing to meet. Now that managers do not need to spend all their time squabbling with union bosses, they can focus on putting that right. If they fail, then the viability of a centuries-old national institution could be called into question.

[guardianangel]

Privatisation,shareholder driven company,greed and a government that thinks of money before people,the water companies,health service ,gas,electric,trains greed is always at the top of the list,the Times are so far behind,we all know whats going on even the government trying to stop the right to strike,the only way back to some sort of normality now im sorry to say is a revolution.

[derekm]

someone spoke about privatisation of companies you mentioned & basically said the only ones who benefit from them are shareholders,& directors the ones they are meant to serve are a second thought. My opinion is they are deliberately destroying letter delivery to the extent people will just accept that’s the way it is now. Instead of seeing your posty on a daily basis you will only see him every other day.

[Mr Rush]

Now that managers do not need to spend all their time squabbling with union bosses, they can focus on putting that right.

That genuinely made me laugh. Unreal.

someone spoke about privatisation of companies you mentioned & basically said the only ones who benefit from them are shareholders,& directors the ones they are meant to serve are a second thought.

The shareholders become the customers and the customers become the product from which dividends are extracted. The net result is the vertical movement of money where it concentrates in very few hands at the top.