Despite overall improvement local post-codes dominate the list of worst performers for first class mail
Over 1 million first class letters every day are arriving late and if you live in London the chances are that more than one out of every ten first class letters will be delayed. The worst area in the country by this measure is the South West of London (SW post-code).
According to Postwatch, the postal services watchdog, Royal Mail has failed nearly twice as many performance targets as last year, meeting only three of the sixteen targets (19%) set out in its licence compared to nine out of sixteen last year according to figures published recently. The figures which cover the period April 2002-March 2003, show that as well as failing to meet the minimum targets for the delivery of 1st class and 2nd class post, Royal Mail also failed to meet targets for their heavily advertised special delivery service and a number of business mail services.
Peter Carr, Chairman of Postwatch said; "These are very disappointing results coming at a time when customers are paying higher prices for their post. These targets are minimum standards and although some progress has been made, this has been a year with virtually no strikes or severe weather conditions to hamper delivery."
First class mail has not improved over the year with the February/March figures on which the targets are judged marginally lower than the year�s average of 91.8%. That means that over 1 million first class letters a day did not arrive on time. Furthermore, whilst no individual postcode area should achieve less than 90%, nearly 1 in 10 failed even this minimum standard.
Peter Carr continued; "whilst the average first class mail performance for 2002-3 is some 2% better than the average for 2001-2, there has been virtually no improvement over the course of this year".
The cumulative figure for 1st class mail for the whole of 2001-2 was 89.9%. By the end of that year they had reached 91.6%. At the end of this year (2002-3) the figure was still at 91.7%.
June 3, 2003