Inquiry Launched into UK Royal Mail

An inquiry has been launched by MPs into the deterioration of postal services in Britain. The trade and industry select committee has requested Royal Mail’s three most senior bosses to appear before them today to explain why deliveries have worsened. Chairman Allan Leighton, Chief Executive Adam Crozier and Operations Director Tom Melvin will be questioned about their implementation of a restructuring plan which involved eliminating the second delivery of the day and has been responsible for a decrease in service quality since Christmas. To halt this, Mr. Crozier took day-to-day charge of letter delivery operations last week. Mr. Crozier has already apologized for the deterioration and admitted the Royal Mail will not hit its target of delivering 92.5 per cent of first class letters the following day. The figure for Britain as a whole during the year to end March was about 90 per cent, with parts of London in the low 80s. Official figures will be disclosed next week and are likely to trigger compensation payments to customers of up to £50million.