MPs quiz Postcomm over postal system revelations
The House of Commons’ Trade and Industry Select Committee subjected the Postal Services Commission, Postcomm, to intense questioning on its work, on Tuesday morning.
MPs were highly critical of the service standards at Royal Mail, following a recent expose in the Channel 4 programme “Dispatches”, which highlighted serious shortcomings in the postal system.
The TV programme, entitled “Third Class Post” claimed that the Royal Mail loses one million letters a week, 20 per cent of which are stolen by employees. The programme makers got their researcher hired by Royal Mail, who spent weeks filming undercover in sorting offices, revealing shocking attitudes and levels of incompetence on the part of staff and management. One postal worker told the researcher that he alone had stolen £350,000 worth of mail.
Representatives from Postcomm, including chair Nigel Stapleton and chief executive Martin Stanley, stressed that the problems in the postal system revealed by “Dispatches” were isolated, and being dealt with. Enforcement orders could be used if Postcomm judged that Royal Mail is not making enough effort to prevent such occurrences, the committee was told.
Nonetheless, Mr Stapleton acknowledged that the programme raised questions about the integrity of the postal system and confirmed that tampering with mail remains a serious office. He also admitted that conduct of the sort shown in the programme was known about in a number of areas in London, and insisted that action had begun to be taken. Postcomm has powers to issue an enforcement order against Royal Mail if it believes that the company is not complying with its statutory duties, Mr Stapleton explained.
Asked by Labour MP Richard Burden whether Postcomm was moving towards issuing such an order before the “Dispatches” programme was aired, the watchdog’s representatives were uncertain, insisting that a decision would have had to await the outcome of PostWatch’s review of the integrity of the mail system. Postcomm believes that Royal Mail has made progress, but Mr Stanley warned that some of the problems of management are very deep-seated, presenting this as one of the reasons for the company’s apparent inability to reform itself. Mr Stapleton acknowledged that the relationship between Postcomm and PostWatch had not been “seamless” since their establishment.
The members of the Committee were outraged at the revelations about Royal Mail’s management. Committee chair Martin O’Neill called for a reduction in postal managers’ salaries, while Lindsay Hoyle also argued that they should be punished directly – rather than punishing the taxpayer indirectly by fining the company.
