21 May 2004
Royal Mail chiefs have admitted that mistakes have been made in implementing a three-year restructuring programme.
Chief executive Adam Crozier and chair Allan Leighton came under fire from MPs at a Commons' trade and industry select committee meeting on May 18 that considered declining standards of service.
'We should not jump to the conclusion that we have destroyed the Post Office. That is not the case,' Crozier told the MPs. 'We will have got some things wrong and we now have action plans in place. The end result will be a more efficient postal service.'
Royal Mail might have failed letter delivery targets, but it had engineered a return to profit and other successes, Crozier insisted. About 90% of first-class post was delivered the next day, he said.
Leighton told the committee that the move to a single daily delivery of post was 'the biggest change to any British industry in the last 25 years', and the Royal Mail had not done a good enough job 'of communicating what this would mean to customers'.
But he asked MPs to remember that Royal Mail had been 'losing billions' and was streamlining itself to compete with commercial rivals. If it did not do so, it would be 'eaten up' by those rivals.
On concerns about security, the MPs were told that Royal Mail prosecuted 300 of its staff last year for theft from post, and has put in place a 180-strong team dedicated to investigating internal crime.
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