The failing mail

In 2015, 499 years of public ownership of Royal Mail came to an end when the government sold its final shares in the service. Since then, things have gone from bad to worse with what was once one of our proudest national institutions. Now it emerges that our parcels will be at increased risk from thieves and ID fraudsters as the postal service plans cuts to its investigations department, which catches those intercepting letters and packages.

The news comes on the back of a 51 per cent rise in the number of complaints to Royal Mail about disappearing parcels over the past year to a record high of 134,712. General complaints about the postal service have also topped a million, having risen by a fifth since 2014, a year after the company was first floated on the stock exchange. Previous jobs cuts of 40 per cent in the investigations department cannot have failed to have had an effect.

The growth of online shopping has made delivery companies an essential, if often frustrating, part of our lives. But while companies can more easily take advantage of the myriad of alternative delivery services, for most of us, a trip to the Post Office is the simplest and most straightforward way to send something from A to B. We need to be confident that what we send will make it through the system. Despite its privatelyowned status, Royal Mail is still required by law to maintain the universal service, whereby items of a specific size can be sent within the UK for a fixed price, and is governed by Ofcom’s “Essential Condition” which means it must take reasonable steps to ensure the security of the mail. Cutting staff responsible for ensuring this would not appear to be the wisest of actions.