Quality of service
Under the conditions of its licence, Royal Mail is obliged to use all reasonable endeavours to meet certain "quality of service" standards covering a wide range of products, including First and Second Class mail, Special Delivery and certain bulk mail services.
Royal Mail is also obliged to perform to set standards in relation to collections from post boxes and deliveries to residential and commercial premises. Where deliveries are concerned, Royal Mail is also required to meet a target in respect of the percentage of mail that is correctly delivered.
Postcomm monitors Royal Mail's compliance with these standards and, if the company fails to meet them, we may consider investigating these failures. Ultimately, Postcomm can consider taking enforcement action - such as obliging Royal Mail to put matters right or imposing a financial penalty.
Royal Mail publishes quarterly performance figures and publishes quarterly quality of service reports on its website. The report for 2007/08 was released on the 30 May 2008.
Royal Mail operates a number of compensation schemes relating to both domestic and business mail. These provide for compensation in the form of stamps and/or money in the case of mail that is lost, damaged or delayed. More information on Royal Mail's compensation schemes (external website). Postcomm has recently consulted on Royal Mail's compensation schemes (full list of related documents) and published a proposals document in December 2007. In June 2007, we agreed to Royal Mail's request to suspend its bulk mail compensation arrangements during industrial action. Full list of documents relating to Royal Mail's quality of service.
- Postcomm's series of downloadable factsheets includes a brief guide to our work on Royal Mail's quality of service.
News releases
- 1 May 2008
Royal Mail submits its case on quality of service failures in 2007/08
- 15 April 2008
Royal Mail to present its case on quality of service failings at open meeting
- 26 June 2007
Royal Mail's request to suspend bulk mail compensation during industrial action
