According to Citizens Advice who are claiming that Royal Mail fail to deliver, almost 15 million people were left waiting for post over the Christmas period. Of those, over half (54%) reported going at least a week without letters. As a result, they estimate that a staggering 2.5 million people missed important documents, health appointments, or were unable to pay a fine or bills, sometimes resulting in further penalties.
The claim that Royal Mail fail to deliver is extrapolated from an online survey of 4,165 UK adults between the 14th-18th of January 2022 to ask them their experience of letter delays between mid-December 2021 and mid-January 2022.
Of those who experienced delays:
- 3% of people said they couldn’t pay a bill, 8% said they missed an important document, and 4% said they were left out of pocket
- 7% said they missed a health appointment. This rose to 16% of those on an NHS waiting list
People across London (35%), the South East (32%) and the North West (31%) were most likely to experience a letter delay.
Additional analysis conducted by Citizens Advice found the situation failed to sufficiently improve in January with 23% of those asked reporting post disruption. Again, more than half of those (54%) reported receiving no post for over a week.
Citizens Advice’s monitoring showed disruption peaked in mid-January. On the 12th and 13th of January, Royal Mail warned that 77 areas across the UK were hit by disruption, affecting up to 2.4 million people in England and Wales each day.
Some of the worst affected areas, including Chelmsford, Willesden and Upminster, faced eight weeks of severe disruption.
While the situation has finally appeared to improve, this is the second year running that the charity has flagged severe Christmas disruption, with 16.5 million people affected last year.
Citizens Advice – the consumer advocate for the postal sector- is calling on Ofcom to investigate Royal Mail’s performance and consider enforcement action and fines. The regulator and Royal Mail must learn lessons from the disruption of the past two years to prevent this from happening again.
It’s wroth pointing out that for the reporting year 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 Ofcom have already opened and closed a case into Royal Mail’s quality of service performance in 2020/21 and concluded that it was due to the pandemic and so classed as ean emergency outside of Royal Mails’ control.
We consider these are factors beyond Royal Mail’s control and which had a substantial impact on quality of service. In that context, Ofcom has decided it is not appropriate to open an investigation of Royal Mail’s service levels during 2020/21.
– Ofcom Investigation into Royal Mail’s quality of service performance in 2020/21
This earlier conclusion by Ofcom isn’t stopping Citizens Advice asserting that Royal Mail fail to deliver and calling for further investigation including for the period already closed by Ofcom.
A staggering 2.5 million of us missed important documents, health appointments, or were unable to pay a fine or bills due to post delays over Christmas.
We understand the strain the pandemic has placed on Royal Mail. But after two years of disruption, Royal Mail cannot let poor service become the new normal. These delays can have serious consequences for those left waiting for their letters.
Ofcom must now investigate Royal Mail’s performance and consider enforcement action and fines to ensure lessons are learnt.
– Dame Clare Moriarty, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice
6 Responses
Someone I know got a summons to appear in court, RM didn’t deliver it so the cops came and arrested him, handcuffed and chucked him in the back of a van, all over a minor thing that he wasn’t even guilty of as it was identity theft.
So cheers Royal Mail for that.
My hermes must be immune to corona virus
They have been magnificent
Royal Mail’s performance over the Christmas period was a disgrace and it’s little better now, we have regular customer complaints of late or lost deliveries. They really need to get their act together.
There have been a lot of items go missing from those we’ve sent by Royal Mail since the start of the year and it’s getting worse. Items seem just to vanish from the system and I would say 3-4% is about right. Many items also inexplicably arrive after 10-12 days. This is not being reflected in other carriers for us. RM is now starting to reject some compensation claims on the grounds we are making too many claims !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!