Royal Mail narrowly missed its First Class stamped mail target in the months leading up toChristmas but Second Class mail, parcels and international deliveries were all on target.
The Standard parcels service comfortably exceeded its target during the autumn andinternational deliveries to European destinations were also ahead of target in the autumn.
The results were published in the latest Royal Mail quality of service report covering thethird quarter of the financial year from the second week of September to the first week ofDecember. Independent measurement of the performance of more than 245,000 sample letters, packetsand parcels posted to nearly 5,800 addresses nationwide was used to compile the report.
During the period, 92.3 per cent of First Class stamped and franked (meter) mail arrived thenext day. This was 0.7 of a percentage point below the target of 93.0 per cent. For Second Classstamped and franked mail, 98.5 per cent arrived on time within three working days after posting,hitting the 98.5 per cent target for this category of mail.
The report showed that the overwhelming majority of all items of mail handled by Royal Mail –which delivers 59 million letters, packets and parcels in an average day – arrived safely, on timeat the correct destination.
Mark Higson, Royal Mail Managing Director for Operations and Modernisation, said: “RoyalMail’s target for next-day delivery of First Class mail is challenging and we are disappointed onbehalf of our customers to have narrowly missed hitting it in the autumn. Our postmen and womenremain determined to deliver the best possible service to our customers.”
Royal Mail is modernising its operations in one of the biggest change programmes in UK industryand the peak period of activity is now underway. The programme involves: modernising andconsolidating the mail centre network, providing postmen and women with better equipment to takethe weight of mail, including increasing numbers of packets and parcels, off their backs andshoulders, and streamlining the delivery operation to take account of the 25 per cent fall over thelast six years in the overall number of mail items being handled. The average daily mailbag nowcontains 59 million items; in 2005-06, it was more than 80 million.
The scale of the changes being implemented means that in some localities there is a temporaryadverse impact on customer service. It remains Royal Mail’s firm objective to implement change withthe minimum possible impact on quality of service. However, as Royal Mail pointed out onpublication three months ago of the quality of service report for the summer months, it will bechallenging to achieve all quality targets over the course of the full financial year to the end ofMarch 2012.
The third quarter report for the 2011-12 financial year covers the period from 5 September2011 to 4 December for all services except European International Delivery, which is measuredduring the period 1 October 2011 to 5 December 2011. The final results for European InternationalDelivery are not yet available but this service was ahead of its target during October andNovember, according to preliminary results.
