Royal Mail delays full rollout of postal overhaul until after Christmas
Royal Mail has revealed it will halt the full rollout of its second-class post overhaul until after Christmas amid calls for the service to urgently improve its performance.
The group said it had agreed with the postal workers’ union to delay expanding the reforms to the remaining 107 delivery offices until January to allow staff to focus on the peak festive season. Royal Mail, whose owner International Distribution Services was bought last year by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, is rolling out major reforms that will result in second-class post only being delivered on alternate weekdays with Saturday second-class deliveries scrapped. The business had expected to expand the new model across all its 1,200 delivery offices by Christmas, after initial delays because of disagreements with the trade union. Royal Mail has so far completed the changes in just under 1,100 delivery offices, with another 15 included by November 2, but will wait until January 11 for the reforms to be applied in the final 107 offices across the UK. Prime Minister Andy Burnham last week told Royal Mail to improve its performance and warned the Government could take “further measures” after the group has repeatedly missing delivery targets. The Communication Workers Union also earlier this month called for an emergency summit on Royal Mail’s future, claiming the organisation was “on the brink of collapse”. Royal Mail insisted its reforms were starting to bear fruit, but said the latest delay was a “pragmatic approach” to allow it to “maintain the momentum behind one of the biggest operational changes in its history, while keeping focus firmly on delivering a successful Christmas for customers”. Alistair Cochrane, chief executive of Royal Mail, said: “We have now deployed our new delivery model in around 90% of delivery offices and are starting to see the benefits for customers. “First-class quality of service has improved by 9%, and offices operating under the new delivery model are delivering to around 95% of addresses each day on average, compared with 88% before rollout began. “There is still more to do, but the progress we are seeing gives us confidence that the new delivery model will continue to ensure more reliable, efficient and sustainable deliveries for our customers.” Royal Mail revealed in August it missed delivery targets once again. It delivered 85% of first-class deliveries the next day and 91.4% of second-class mail within three working days during the first quarter of the year. Under recently lowered targets set by Ofcom, 90% of first-class mail should be delivered the next day and 95% of second-class mail should be delivered within three days. Royal Mail insisted it had seen a marked improvement from a year earlier, when first-quarter figures showed just 76% of first-class and 89.3% of second-class post arrived on time. In Prime Minister’s Questions last week, Mr Burnham said Royal Mail’s service has been “unacceptable for far too long”. He said: “They need to bring forward a plan to restore service standards to the level they need to be at. They need to do it quickly or we will consider further measures.” Royal Mail published an improvement plan in the spring which included a commitment to invest £500 million in quality of service over five years. Earlier this month, Royal Mail said it would cut 2,500 head office jobs and other supporting roles, about 2% of its overall workforce. Frontline postal workers are not part of the proposed restructure, the group said. Royal Mail is hiring 22,000 temporary workers over the Christmas period to help transport, sort and deliver the additional mail expected over the festive period.
Published: by Radio NewsHub