Tag: Postwatch

Postwatch chairman Peter Carr has waded into the row over Postcomm’s pricing proposals, tongue-lashing Royal Mail for claiming the price- freeze would starve the company of cash. The watchdog maintains that the plans allow a minimum capital expenditure of GBP750m up until 2010. It claims, in fact, that Royal Mail will spend GBP40m less than its budget under the current deal. A Postwatch spokesman says: “Royal Mail is making an issue out of nothing. It is not being starved of investment. Quite the contrary, it has the freedom and the money.”

Royal Mail yesterday described its watchdog as ‘scaremongering’ and ‘opportunistic’ after Postwatch complained that the organisation was not reinstating collection tabs on postboxes. The tabs, which show when the next collection will be, were removed in 2002. Royal Mail has pledged to reinstate them, where practical, but Postwatch said yesterday it had not been done in many cases and that it may cause difficulties for postal voters in the upcoming election. A spokesman for Royal Mail said it had only promised to reinstate tabs where it was practical and that some postboxes would need to be replaced entirely before tabs were fitted. He also attacked Postwatch’s timing as “opportunistic”.

Postwatch, the consumer watchdog for postal services, today criticised Royal
Mail’s failure keep its promise to customers to fully reintroduce collection
tabs to post boxes, and warned that this inaction may cause difficulties for
postal voters. Following a Postwatch campaign, Royal Mail agreed to reintroduce collection tabs in late 2004. Collection tabs are important to customers as they
indicate that the daily final collection from the post box has been made.
Despite Royal Mail’s promise to customers to fully reintroduce the tabs, a
Postwatch survey of 2,600 post boxes conducted in January 2005 found that
only 1 in every 3 post boxes had their collection tabs replaced.

Postwatch chairman Peter Carr is urging business mail users to look again at compensation they received from Royal Mail, after it paid a further GBP200,000 to a UK building society which queried an original settlement. Royal Mail has admitted failing to properly process invoices during 2003-04, resulting in the increased payout. Carr comments: “Royal Mail failed all of its 15 performance targets in 2003-04. Customers were promised compensation. “Postcomm believes that GPB80m was owed, but only around GBP40m has been paid a year later. I advise all business product mailers to find out from Royal Mail how much compensation they should have received, and compare this with how much has been paid.”