Do you remember when Royal Mail delivered letters the next day and you expected them to arrive on time? Service standards have plummeted since privatisation. We are lucky if second class mail arrives within a week. From social media and press reports, the sluggish delivery problem appears to be widespread. I have had vital hospital letters taking ten days to arrive, not the three days expected.
The latest figures for the SY postcode which covers much of Shropshire, including the Ludlow area are not encouraging. Only 78.2% of first class mail arrives the next day (target 93%). Nationally, just 90% of second class mail is delivered within 3 days (target 98.5%; there are no published figures for second class delivery locally).
Mail volumes have dropped. The average household now receives fewer than four letters a week, compared with around 14 a week twenty years ago.
But the decline in mail does not explain why the service has got so bad. The problem stems a lot from the way Royal Mail treats its workers. New contracts were introduced for new posties in 2022. The new contracts were at lower rates than existing staff and many workers are only offered a 30-hour week. Now half of new recruits leave in the first year. In the era of the Singing Postman and more recently of Postman Pat, being a postie was regarded as a career occupation. Now working conditions have been described in parliament as “harsh”. Since the Royal Mail was privatised under the Coalition Government in 2013, the service has gone badly wrong. Although the government retains a golden share, it is yet another example of privatisation going wrong.
Royal Mail, now part of International Distribution Services, is owned by the Czech EP Group and is making a small profit. What it is not doing is delivering the service that householders and the regulator expect.
For NHS letters, which was the starting point for the article, the Royal Mail delivery performance is unacceptable. The NHS App can reduce dependence on the post and almost nine in ten adults are now registered. But not everyone uses it and many hospital departments still rely on letters. Until that changes, patients should be able to rely on Royal Mail to deliver important medical correspondence on time. At present, too often they cannot.