UK Royal Mail’s Quality of Service targets
service targets for the first quarter (April-June 2004). This follows the company’s failure to meet any of its targets during 2003-04.
Postcomm’s response
Postcomm is concerned, but not surprised at Royal Mail’s performance of 88.3% against a target of 92.5%. First class deliveries in the first quarter (Q1) were worse than Q4 last year (89.4%) and worse than the 2004 annual outturn (90.1%). We know that the way Royal Mail implemented elements of its renewal plan, which affected the company’s performance in the last quarter, persisted into the beginning of this year. The service to customers was not acceptable and Royal Mail has begun paying out compensation for last year.
In mid-May Royal Mail’s top management took a grip on the situation, and since then its performance has begun to improve. We would like to see it progress further and faster, but it is moving in the right direction.
We are already investigating Royal Mail’s failure to meet its service targets during the previous 12 months. That investigation could result in a financial penalty. The investigation will also take account of these latest failure figures.
Royal Mail has also delivered a report into why it missed the Q1 targets and the action plans it is implementing to improve its performance this year. We are looking at the action plans in detail with Royal Mail and assessing their effectiveness. If we consider the plans are not sufficient, we can require Royal Mail to strengthen them.
It must be remembered that Royal Mail is required to meet an annual target for quality of service standards. The results of Q1 will be taken into account on a cumulative basis with the next three quarters of the year.
