Postcomm tells Royal Mail to tighten up on poorly performing postcode areas
Postcomm today moved to make Royal Mail improve its patchy first class letter service by tightening up operations in its worst performing postcode areas.
Royal Mail has a minimum target for every postcode area to deliver 90% of first class post on time. About four in five of postcode areas throughout the UK reach or exceed this level of performance. But the remainder – a number of them in densely populated areas – do not. In some places it takes longer for a first class letter to be collected and delivered within the same postcode area than to be delivered elsewhere.
Postcomm today issued an enforcement notice after receiving information from Royal Mail which indicated that the company was unlikely to achieve its 2003 postcode area targets. The notice specifies the actions that Postcomm intends to order Royal Mail to take and gives the company 21 days to respond.
If served, the proposed order would require Royal Mail to take specific steps to improve its performance, provide evidence it is doing so, and issue monthly progress reports to Postcomm.
Notes for editors
There are 121 postcode areas in the UK. The postcode area targets underpin Royal Mail’s overall national target for first class mail, which is 92.5%. Because there will be local variation around the national target, they are intended to ensure that no area’s service dips below an acceptable level, even if the national target is achieved.
