Tag: Royal Mail

A 24-hour strike by hundreds of Royal Mail sorting staff in Exeter has been called off just hours before the walk-out.

Around 400 members of the Communication Workers Union were due to stop work at the mail centre in Exeter Devon at 2pm on Monday.

Royal Mail was bringing in 450 managers to help maintain the service.

But a Royal Mail spokesman said they had been told the dispute was now off.

The stoppage was due to take place over a dispute over working practices at Exeter.

CWU spokesman Phil Chadwick said although the action had been called off, it could be on again next Monday if agreement was not reached at talks with the Royal Mail.

But he said good positive progress had been made in talks with the Royal Mail.

Royal Mail bosses have hailed the hard work of Edinburgh’s postmen and women after they finally ensured the city’s first-class mail was arriving on time.

For years, Edinburgh has had one of the poorest delivery records in Scotland.

Figures released by Postwatch Scotland show households within the EH postcode had seen delivery rates improve dramatically between July and September.

The quarterly results show in Edinburgh the Royal Mail is now delivering 93.6 per cent of all first-class mail by the next day – higher than the 91.5 per cent target set by postal regulator Postcomm.

However, the watchdog warned the results are for the quiet summer months and urged the city’s postmen to keep up the good work over the annual Christmas rush.

John Manson, Royal Mail area manager, added: “The challenge we now face is to maintain the consistent, high-quality service we are delivering to our customers in the run-up to the busy Christmas period. We are determined to meet that challenge.”

Tricia Dow, director of Postwatch Scotland, which monitors the performance of the Royal Mail and other postal providers, said: “It is good news that there has been an improvement in Edinburgh and, at last, the city has started to move up in the rankings.

“We now want to see an increased improvement by the time the next quarterly figures come out and hope that Edinburgh continues to go in the right direction.

Royal Mail’s quality of service to customers is at its highest level ever, as the latest figures show. In the second quarter of 2006-07 (end of June to early September), 94.5% of First Class letters arriving the next working day after posting. This is the best performance of any quarter on record, and exceeds the 93.0% national target.

Second Class mail also beat its 98.5% target, with a 99.1% performance over the same three-month period – also the best second quarter result on record.

“These are great results and confirm we are delivering the best ever quality of service to our customers,” said Ian Griffiths, Managing Director, Royal Mail Letters. “This is thanks to the hard work and dedication of all our postmen and women who do a first class job day in, day out.”

Mail services used by larger businesses also exceeded their targets. These include Mailsort bulk business mail services, Presstream for magazine mailings and PPI (printed postage impression) items.

Royal Mail’s Standard Parcel service recorded a performance of 95.2% – well above its 90.0% target. Royal Mail’s Special Delivery guaranteed next day service also exceeded its target – with a 99.1% performance against its 99.0% target.