Millions of UK letters missing as Royal Mail cuts service
The UK postal service has descended into chaos with millions of letters lying undelivered for weeks.
Hospital operations have been missed, business orders cancelled and birthdays unmarked as sorting offices struggle to switch from a morning and afternoon service to a single delivery.
Postmen complain that the move – designed to save the Royal Mail GBP 350 million a year – has been implemented badly, with some staff having to carry heavy sackloads of mail on trolleys.
Delivery rounds that used to take two to four hours now last up to eight hours, and some postmen have given up on the new arrangements. There are reports of mail being thrown away and postbags being dumped. Times of deliveries are also unpredictable and backlogs of unsorted mail are growing.
As revealed on our front page, the Royal Mail is facing fines of at least pounds 50 million from Postcomm, the regulatory watchdog, because of late deliveries and lost mail.
Among the victims of the chaos is three-year-old Abigail Fielding. She had been waiting for a hernia operation for months, but a letter from Victoria Hospital in Blackpool with a date for which it had been scheduled arrived after the operation was due to take place – despite being posted first class seven days before. She now faces a lengthy delay.
Abigail's mother, Claire, 32, said: "I am absolutely fuming. How can it take a week for a letter posted first class to travel a few miles? She's in pain, she cries, she screams and now she's missed it because of the state of our postal service."
In Hampshire, pensioners besieged a post office last week demanding to know what has happened to missing mail. Tricia Jones-Lofting, 73, of Old Basing, near Basingstoke, still has not received cards for her birthday in March.
She said: "I know four were posted first class. I feel very disappointed and so do my children. Getting cards keeps you in contact."
An exercise last week by The Sunday Telegraph to test the state of the mail service demonstrated how badly the promised delivery times are being missed. Twenty first-class letters were posted in east London at lunch time on Wednesday to addresses across Britain. Not one arrived the next day, as they should have. Seven were delivered on Friday, a day late, and two arrived yesterday. The other 11 were still missing.
The Royal Mail's move to a single daily delivery, which was first recommended by the Prime Minister's Policy and Innovation Unit in 1999, was intended "to improve customer service".
Postmen complain that it is just a "cost-cutting exercise". One worker at Blackpool sorting office said: "Things are backing up and it is just chaos down here. They're trying to work us harder and harder to sort out their mess."
Managers have privately accused some postmen of deliberately trying to scupper the new arrangements – by dumping mail or failing to deliver it. One said: "The fact is that many postmen used to get off their shifts early and they don't like the fact that we're stamping down on that."
In some parts of London, postmen have demanded extra payments to continue working until 2pm, the official end of their shift.
The Sunday Telegraph has also found that postmen have recently been hired from overseas and sent out on deliveries with little or no training and just a map. In one case, two Ghanaian students working at London's Mount Pleasant sorting office failed to deliver half their mail and dumped it back at the office.
The problems have been exacerbated by theft. A recent investigation found criminals had become Royal Mail workers to steal credit cards, chequebooks and passports. Last year, pounds 43 million worth of fraud was caused by credit cards "lost" in the post.
Post union leaders rejected the criticisms. Stuart Caddy, a postman and the Labour leader of Burnley council, said: "Since the changes, postmen have been working longer hours, tirelessly trying to catch up with the backlog."
The problems will be an embarrassment for Adam Crozier, the former chief executive of the Football Association, charged with transforming Britain's shambolic post services when he was appointed chief executive of the Royal Mail last year on a salary of pounds 500,000 a year and bonus payments of up to pounds 250,000.
Mr Crozier declined invitations to talk about the current problems last week.
A Royal Mail spokesman admitted: "There have been difficulties in implementing one delivery a day and we apologise for any inconvenience caused. Britain is one of the last countries in the world with two deliveries a day and the change will be beneficial when the system settles down."
