Doubt cast over Royal Mail reliability

Post for millions of people is going missing or arriving damaged, according to a new survey that casts doubt over Royal Mail's reliability.

One quarter of householders surveyed by Which? magazine said at least one postal item sent to them was damaged and another item was lost in the past 12 months, while a further 34 per cent had experienced either lost or damaged mail.

The figures, from a survey of 1,000 people carried out in September, flatly contradict Royal Mail's claim to be delivering 99.9 per cent of items properly. In the run-up to Christmas, Britons are expected to spend far more ordering goods from the internet for delivery. The Royal Mail expects 70 million items to be delivered from the Web this Christmas, compared with 55 million last year.

Postwatch, the postal watchdog, said the number of cases where customers had problems with the premium "special delivery" service was "quite worrying".

In recent years, postal staff have made headlines for stealing mail to pocket cash and cheques - 202 postal staff were convicted of theft in 2004 and another 82 cases are pending.

One of the most famous cases last year involved Nicholas Fryer, a postman in Staffordshire who stole more than 130,000 letters. He was jailed for two years.

In April police broke up a £30m mail fraud ring in a sorting office in Golders Green, north London. Officers claimed the gang was intercepting new cheque books and using them to pay for goods.

In July, damaging claims about the reliability of the postal service were made by Channel 4's Dispatches programme. Undercover reporters found ex-offenders working as postmen, lax security at depots and poor standards of service.

The Royal Mail said that reliability was still excellent despite the latest survey. A spokesman said: "The results of the Which? survey just do not come anywhere near our own figures.

"These show more than 99.93 per cent of the 22 billion letters Royal Mail handles annually are delivered safely to the correct address, and the quality of service our postmen and women are delivering to customers is the best on record."

From January Royal Mail will lose its monopoly on domestic letters, but rivals are not initially expected to deliver first and second-class letters to homes, instead concentrating on business mail.