MP Raises Concerns At time Taken For Post To Reach Constituency Office

As an online retailer Handles & Hinges rely on Royal Mail to deliver a vast number of parcels and takes pride in despatching 98% of orders on the same day. But on occassions get complaints from customes that the parcel has not arrived quickly enough, so we found the article below by our local MP very interesting.

The following has been copied from the website of Bolton South East MP, Yasmin Quereshi  www.yasminqureshi.org.uk/:

MP Raises Concerns At time Taken For Post To Reach Constituency Office

Thursday 15th March 2012

Bolton South East MP, Yasmin Qureshi, has raised concerns about the Second Class postal service – after it took eleven days for a letter to be delivered to her constituency office.

Yasmin Qureshi was one of 38 MPs to take part in a postal experiment, set up by Shadow Minister for Postal Affairs Ian Murray MP and designed to test the efficiency of the Second Class Service.

As part of the experiment, letters were posted from a central London postbox to MP’s offices across the country – and the time taken to deliver each item was recorded.

Although the Royal Mail’s published ‘aim’ is to deliver Second Class items within three working days – not one of the items arrived within the three-day target.

On average it took more than six working days for the items to reach their destinations.

Yasmin Qureshi believes that the experiment suggests a worrying variation in the efficiency of the service offered by the Royal Mail.

Yasmin Qureshi said: “On this occasion it took eleven days for an item posted in London to arrive in the constituency – and that is significantly longer than the three-day target published by the Royal Mail.

“Usually when an item arrives in the post there’s no way to tell when it was posted or how long it took to deliver. So it’s impossible to tell whether it regularly takes this long or whether this is a unique case.

“Nevertheless I am sufficiently concerned by the findings to raise them with the Royal Mail.

“The Second Class postal service is relied upon by many people in Bolton – and when they trust it with their letters, their invoices or their greetings cards they deserve to have an accurate idea of the time it will take to deliver.”

Under new deregulatory proposals, outlined by Ofcom, the cost of a Second Class stamp could rise from 36 pence to as much as 55 pence. But significantly the Second Class Service would be the only postal service that would continue to have a price cap.

Labour’s Shadow Minister for Postal Affairs Ian Murray MP believes that makes it more important than ever to ensure the Second Class service has a guaranteed measure of reliability – so that it is not allowed to become vastly inferior to the more expensive services offered by the Royal Mail.

Mr Murray, who is MP for Edinburgh South, said: “Should the Second Class service become the only part of the Royal Mail that continues to be regulated by price, it will become more important to consumers than ever before, particularly small businesses and vulnerable customers.

“Even if more premium services increase in price, there must be some guarantee that the service level offered through the Second Class service is maintained.

“In our own postal experiment we found that there is already significant variation in the length of time it takes to deliver Second Class items of mail to different parts of the country.

“On average it took six working days for letters posted in central London to be delivered – and in one case it took 11.

“This is a worrying snapshot of the current performance of the Second Class postal service. And steps must be taken to make sure it is not allowed to decrease further.

“I also believe that there is a case for the postal service to be made more transparent – so consumers are immediately aware of how long it has taken for their mail to arrive.”

As part of the ‘experiment’ Mr Murray posted letters to more than 38 MPs offices around the country. He asked MPs to record the date that the letter arrived, whether it had a postmark and if so what the date was on the postmark.

Recipients had no way to determine how long it had taken for the piece of mail to be delivered. And even postmarks proved to be a poor indication of when the item had entered the postal system – with some dated two days after posting, some five days after posting and some items not postmarked at all.