A committee of MPs has referred Royal Mail to regulator Ofcom for breaching its requirement to deliver letters across the country six days a week. In a strongly worded report, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee said the company had “systematically failed to deliver” the so-called universal service obligation.
The committee also said Royal Mail chief executive Simon Thompson was “not wholly accurate” in answers he gave to MPs on the use of technology to track and discipline workers. “Royal Mail denied having any knowledge of the tracking of postal workers using technology and said evidence of this practice, and of managers disciplining postal workers using such data, was due to non-compliance with Royal Mail policy,” said the committee.
MPs said they “did not believe that such widespread errors could happen without direct or indirect approval of management.” MPs urged the Royal Mail’s board to review management of the firm on grounds of “negligence” if they knew nothing about the practices.
