UK Royal Mail set to miss post target

The Royal Mail is expected to miss its target for delivering post on time as complaints about the service continue to be made by customers.

The organisation has a target of delivering 92.5percent of first class letters a day after they were posted, but it is set to miss the figure by up to 4percent.

Officials admitted today that the service had been experiencing problems, especially in London, because of changes to deliveries.

“It is not good enough, and improving it is our number one priority,” said a spokesman.

The fall in meeting the target has followed the change to single deliveries across the country as part of a drive to make the Royal Mail more efficient.

Figures due to be announced on Thursday are expected to show that the Royal Mail has turned around losses of almost GBP200 million into a GBP200 million profit for the last financial year.

But MPs have been complaining to Royal Mail managers about late deliveries in their areas.

One MP told chairman Allan Leighton last week that deliveries in parts of Burnley had gone from two a day to just one a week.

A number of Labour MPs became the latest to complain when they met with Royal Mail officials to give details of late deliveries in the capital.

Ealing’s Labour MP Stephen Pound told how he had seen trolleys of mail left chained to railings and casual staff having to consult street maps.

The Royal Mail said today it understood how the MPs felt because the post was an important part of people’s lives, but he assured them: “We are listening very hard and we are doing our best to bring the service up to a standard everyone wants.”

Figures for achieving next-day deliveries, to be announced by consumer group Postwatch later this week, are expected to show a patchy service, especially in parts of London.

The last time Postwatch published figures, earlier this year, showed that London had 16 of the 20 worst performing postcode areas of the country.