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Royal Mail said it prosecuted 300 of its staff last year for stealing from the post and other offences and has an 180-strong team dedicated to investigating crime in an effort by management to quash concerns about postal security.

Allan Leighton, chairman of the postal group, and Adam Crozier, chief executive, were yesterday grilled by MPs on various aspects of Royal Mail’s three-year turnaround plan, from post office closures to the scrapping of the second daily delivery. The executives told MPs that Royal Mail was reviewing its hiring policies and would cut its use of casual staff, who are not always properly vetted or trained.

In response to questions about a recent television documentary that showed negligence and theft among Royal Mail workers, Mr Crozier said the prosecutions had been for random individual acts, that the number of crimes was dropping and that no organised crime or regional pattern had been found.

Adam Crozier, the Royal Mail chief executive, yesterday insisted that management attempts to shake up the Post Office had not “destroyed” it but admitted they had led to some difficulties. The former Football Association boss was forced to defend the organisation as it came under fire from MPs of all parties at a Commons trade and industry select committee meeting. Mr Crozier admitted being shaken by a recent Channel 4 Dispatches programme highlighting criminality and other failings inside the Post Office but said a range of initiatives had been introduced to deal with this. Three big “change programmes” implemented at the same time had put the Royal Mail under stress. Failed letter delivery targets came along with a return to profit and other successes, he said.