Second-class report for UK postal services

Postal service provision is “chronically poor” throughout many areas of Britain, the chairman of the public accounts committee (PAC) has said.

Sir Edward Leigh made the critical comments as he attacked postal regulator Postcomm for its limited progress in encouraging competition within the UK postal market.

Publishing its report into the progress of Postcomm since it enforced new regulatory guidelines on the Royal Mail in March, the PAC says that while progress has been made, more is needed.

“You would expect that a new regime for the quality of postal services would aim to improve collection and delivery times and reduce the number of pieces of mail lost by Royal Mail. If so, you would be mistaken,” Sir Edward said.

“Neither of these aspects of performance is targeted under the current regime introduced in April of this year. Given that people are now receiving their mail later in the day and that over 15 million letters and parcels are being lost, stolen or damaged in a year, it is pretty clear that the interests of ordinary users of the post are not an absolute priority.”

Today’s PAC report calls on Postcomm to monitor the activities of Royal Mail more closely and foster a sense of competition within the postal market to encourage the development of more efficient procedures.

The postal market is currently undergoing a major transition towards increased competition. Regulations introduced in 2006, due to last until 2010, have “greater clarity and simplicity”, the PAC report states.

It adds that improvements will only take place if Postcomm implements the changes “in an informed and proportionate manner”, however.

Royal Mail vociferously rejected the PAC report’s claims. A spokesperson said: “It is absolute nonsense to suggest anything other than Royal Mail’s quality of service is at record levels. Its performance is among the very best in Europe and its prices are among the very lowest.”