Tag: Royal Mail

Axed mail trains to make comeback

Posted by | Oct 17, 2004 | |

Royal Mail is to bring back rail deliveries less than a year after it axed the service to save costs amid concerns that the busy Christmas period could be hit by poor performance. The U-turn will see the firm running four mail trains up and down the country daily, with the first services starting next month. If they increase efficiency and help restore public confidence in the struggling postal network, they may be brought back permanently. The company is expecting to handle about 2.1 billion letters and parcels in the four weeks before Christmas, but it fears bad weather could hamper distribution by road and air.
Transport problems may be compounded by a shortage of manpower. Royal Mail is recruiting 23,000 temporary staff but some postal workers, who feel their workload is too demanding, are threatening to withdraw overtime. The decision to scrap mail trains was taken last year following a transport review.

Read More

UK Royal Mail TMI plan sparks legal threat

Posted by | Oct 15, 2004 | |

Royal Mail is facing legal action following a dispute over the postal operator’s Tailor Made Incentives (TMIs) discount scheme. Pabo, which specialises in lingerie, magazines and videos, spends around GBP2.4m a year on Royal Mail’s services. But it is consulting its lawyers over a dispute that centres around a marketing venture that involved sending out a 16-page booklet to consumers featuring its best-selling items. The firm says it spent GBP75,000 on the mailing and, after discussions with Royal Mail to ensure it met the criteria for TMIs, expected to receive a discount of around GBP6,500. But it claims Royal Mail offered just GBP305. Pabo UK director David Billington says: “You get different information from different sectors of Royal Mail’s business. We understand that the maximum TMI anyone now receives is 5 per cent, but it is not a level playing-field.”

Read More

UK Royal Mail complaints rise 300% as targets are missed

Posted by | Oct 15, 2004 | |

Complaints about lost, damaged and late post have rocketed by more than 300 per cent in two years and are likely to reach 40,000 by the end of the financial year, according to new figures from the independent postal service watchdog.
Postwatch, the organisation set up to monitor Royal Mail, handled 28,000 complaints last year, up from just 6,300 in 2002, and says complaints this year are already on course to reach 40,000 by April. Of the 28,000 complaints handled by the watchdog last year, only 88 were about companies other than Royal Mail. Officials said the failure of Royal Mail to hit any of its 15 performance targets was fuelling increases in complaints ranging from lost letters and parcels to problems with redirection. The number of complaints, contained in a National Audit Office report about the postal and energy watchdogs, will reignite anger about the standard of postal services after figures published this year suggested that 14.5 million letters are lost each year, with 60 per cent delivered to the wrong address.

Read More

UK MPs to launch inquiry into future of crown post offices

Posted by | Oct 14, 2004 | |

Post Office executives are to be grilled by MPs overthe future of the 550 high street crown offices, some of which are facing closure, relocation or being taken over. Crown post offices are directly owned by the Post Office, unlike smaller sub-post offices, and lose almost Pounds 70m a year thanks to soaring rents, inefficient use of space and labour-intensive working practices. Options being considered to make the offices more commercially viable are closure, relocation to nearby but lower-cost premises, and franchising out to convenience store groups such as Londis. It would be possible to run a scaled-back post office counter from these stores, the Post Office has said. Ian Fisher, of consumer watchdog Postwatch, said crown office closures could be more controversial than the recent cuts in urban sub-post office numbers.

“Crown offices are the flagship stores within the network, they are prominently-located and heavily-used, so any change would attract a lot of interest.”

Read More

Orkney and Shetland Islands’ MP demands action on parcel charges

Posted by | Oct 13, 2004 | |

Opening up parcel deliveries to competition has been a disaster for the people in remote communities who rely most heavily on them, a Liberal Democrat MP complained today. Alistair Carmichael, who represents Orkney and Shetland, called for Government action to protect the islanders from inflated charges for often almost non-existent services. And he warned that any moves to privatise the Post Office’s letter delivery service would create further problems and force more people to move to overcrowded urban areas. Party colleague Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) said it was unacceptable that state-owned Parcelforce charged islanders twice the usual rate for a service that was a day slower. He called for the firm to be made subject to the same universal service obligation as Royal Mail.

Read More

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

P&P Poll

Loading

What's the future of the postal USO?

Thank you for voting
You have already voted on this poll!
Please select an option!



View ResultsHide Results

Post & Parcel Magazine


Post & Parcel Magazine is our print publication, released 3 times a year. Packed with original content and thought-provoking features, Post & Parcel Magazine is a must-read for those who want the inside track on the industry.

Subscribe to the Magazine

 

Pin It on Pinterest