MPs ask Royal Mail to respond to concerns about postal service amid ‘chaos’

Royal Mail has been asked to respond to a group of MPs who raised concerns about “chaos” in the postal service since Christmas and suggestions that some letters are being delivered in “batches”.

The company has been given two weeks to respond to a series of questions put to it by the Business and Trade Committee (BTC).

The letter, addressed to Royal Mail’s interim chief executive Alistair Cochrane and sent on Monday, followed warnings that stormy weather and staff sickness were causing some disruption to its service.

The BTC raised “significant concerns about the quality of the postal service being provided by Royal Mail”.

It cited the postal firm issuing a notice about potential service delays across 38 of its delivery offices this week, covering around 100 UK postcodes, as a result of local issues like a higher than usual number of staff off sick.

“This chaos has continued into mid-February, well beyond the predictable pressures of the Christmas period,” the letter read.

The BTC, a cross-party group formed of 11 MPs chaired by Liam Byrne, also raised suggestions that “in some cases Royal Mail deliberately chooses not to deliver letters until a ‘batch’ of mail is ready to be delivered to that address”.

“This alleged practice of ‘batching’ letters, if true, clearly risks customers missing important time-sensitive information such as medical appointments, as well as impacting upon Royal Mail’s delivery performance.”

A report in the BBC on Monday found some letters were being held in delivery offices for weeks, leaving people to miss urgent mail such as appointment notices and bank statements.

Royal Mail has said organisations sending high volumes of letters, such as banks and the NHS, are increasingly using a service that delivers mail five days after posting, rather than opting for first- or second-class.

Items sent using this service are delivered with a first- or second-class item or on the fifth day after posting, meaning people can tend to see mail grouped together and arriving at the same time.

The BTC set out a list of questions for the company to respond to around its delivery service and performance targets.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: “We have received the committee’s letter and will be replying in detail.

“We understand how frustrating it is when post does not arrive as expected and we want to reassure customers that the vast majority of mail is delivered as planned.

“Issues such as adverse weather and sickness absence have caused some short-term disruption to certain routes.”

It added that where delays do affect a route, it will move to bring in extra support to “restore deliveries as quickly as possible”.