OPTA: ‘Questions concerning timely postal deliveries by TPG Post’

OPTA is of the opinion that TPG is failing to comply with the minimum standard for the timely delivery of letters. However, the postal market regulatory authority cannot yet establish this with certainty, because contrary to the relevant regulations, TPG is not including certain postal items in its assessments. For instance, no postal items were counted in December. However, precisely because it is reasonable to assume that post is delivered more slowly in the busy month of December, OPTA is assuming that TPG’s performance – which was just above the standard during the other months of 2001 – was below the legally stipulated requirements overall during that year. TPG is required to modify its monitoring methods.

Every calendar year TPG Post is required to deliver 95% of all letters of up to 100 grams the next day. Each year OPTA uses reports submitted by TPG Post to determine whether the latter complies with this standard and if it employs a proper system to determine whether it does or does not manage to comply with this standard.

No proper monitoring system

Recently TPG Post has drastically improved its monitoring system and has reported to OPTA that 95.6% of all letters were delivered the next day in 2001. However, OPTA is unable to assess whether TPG Post has complied with the standard of 95% because it has not employed a proper monitoring system. For instance, in December TPG Post did not time how long it took to deliver those letters which were posted in the red letterboxes. Because of the large quantity of Christmas cards it is possible for the delivery of ordinary letters to be delayed during this period. If TPG had included this in its quality assessment, OPTA believes that it is reasonable to assume that it would have failed to comply with the standard of 95%. OPTA has ordered TPG Post to ensure that this assessment is also conducted in December in the future, so as to establish clearly whether it satisfies the 95% requirement throughout the year. In order to be better able to insist on a proper monitoring system and compliance with the standard OPTA has urged the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs to increase its powers in this respect.