Royal Mail still fails to deliver

POSTAL deliveries in Edinburgh have again been ranked as amongst the worst in the UK, according to the latest Royal Mail figures.

The report, which covers the last nine months, showed that just over 80 per cent of the Capital's first class mail had been delivered the following day, well short of the target of 93 per cent.

In Scotland, only Dundee had worse figures, with 78.5 per cent of first class mail being delivered on time. Edinburgh was the 11th worst performer in the UK.

Industry watchdog Postwatch Scotland also said that EH6 – which covers Leith – was the most complained about postcode area in Scotland.

Nationwide the figures showed the Royal Mail was set to miss annual targets in ten of its 12 licence areas, the worst results since 2003/4, when the company missed all of its licence targets.

Industrial action which saw postal services severely disrupted for several months last year, including wildcat strikes at the Gyle sorting office in May and widespread walk-outs across the country in October, were blamed for the poor performance.

But Postwatch said that while strike action would have affected deliveries, it should not be used to excuse the continued poor performance of Edinburgh's mail services.

In the first quarter of 2007, the Capital was just below delivery targets, with 91.2 per cent of first class mail delivered the next day.

This dropped to 81.9 in the second quarter, due mainly to the series of strikes which saw up to 130,000 members of the Communication Workers Union stage a series of 48-hour strikes over jobs, pay and pensions.

And the cumulative figures – which take into account the previous results over the year – have now dropped even further.

Tricia Dow, director of Postwatch Scotland, said the Edinburgh results were extremely disappointing.

"The industrial action has clearly affected the figures, but Edinburgh has been under-performing for a long time now," she said.

"It is the second worst performer in Scotland, and we have had more complaints about EH6 in the last nine months than anywhere else in Scotland.

"It is simply not good enough for a capital city, which has one of the largest sorting offices in Scotland, to be consistently missing targets like this."

The Royal Mail said the figures were in contrast to the target-beating performance being delivered nationwide before the start of last year's dispute.

It added that east of Scotland figures were lower because of unofficial industrial action in the first quarter and official action in the second and third quarters.

Ricky McAulay, Royal Mail area general manager for the East of Scotland, said: "With the strike behind us and a wide-ranging agreement on modernisation in place, we are now focused on delivering once again consistent, high quality of service to all our customers."