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British letter and parcel carrier Royal Mail has told to stop blaming the Covid pandemic for late deliveries after missing performance targets.
An investigation by industry regulator Ofcom found that just 82% of first class mail was delivered within one working day in the year to March 31, well below a target of 93%.
Ofcom said 94.29% of delivery routes were completed each day a delivery was required – against the target of 99.9%.
The regulator accepted that Covid continued to have a “significant, pervasive and unprecedented” impact on Royal Mail’s operations, as staff were off sick with the virus and parcel volumes soared as locked-down Britons switched to online shopping.
“But we do not expect Covid-19 to have a continuing, significant impact on the company’s service levels,” it warned.
“Social distancing measures are no longer in place, absence levels are likely to be much less unpredictable and parcel volumes have largely returned to pre-pandemic trends.
“We are concerned by the fact that Royal Mail’s performance in the early part of 2022/23 fell well short of where it should be.
“We believe the company has had plenty of time to learn lessons from the pandemic and we are unlikely to consider the factors outlined above as exceptional and beyond its control in future.”
Royal Mail, owned by International Distributions Services, long-running dispute with the Communication Workers Union over pay, jobs and conditions which has led to a series of strikes, with more walkouts planned in the busy run up to Christmas.
Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com
