Woking Royal Mail sorting office

Royal Mail made their second appearance before the Overview & Scrutiny Committee at Woking Borough Council this evening to give feedback on the progress made in improving delivery problems in the GU area.

This was a follow-up meeting from their first appearance before Councillors on the 4^th July 2011.  Royal Mail appeared before Councillors last year after local Woking Councillors received numerous complaints from residents regarding mail delivery in the GU area.

Tonight’s meeting also followed on from a site visit which took place on the 1^st September 2011.  Local Councillors Denzil Coulson, Carl Thomson and Amanda Coulson visited Royal Mail’s Woking Delivery Office on White Rose Lane to view operations and Royal Mail’s new procedures in an effort to address delivery problems.

In September 2011, Royal Mail reported that they were:

• Splitting up the workload from two to three postmen for particular routes.
• Listening to the postmen and addressing their delivery concerns.
• Allowing the use of bicycles, and not just vans, for certain delivery routes in St. Johns and Pyrford.
• Improving customer service with regards to the delivery of parcels and the delivery times to secure residential blocks.
• Committed and would endeavour to meet their postcode area target performance of 91,5% in the GU postcode area by January 2012.

This evening’s meeting was an opportunity for Woking Councillors to hear Royal Mail give feedback on these issues and question any outstanding concerns. James Mitchell, the Public Affairs Manager for the Royal Mail Group, attended the meeting and reported back on the interim measures that Royal Mail implemented in Woking:

 PROGRESS REPORT

1.         Following an internal investigation into problems at Woking Sorting Office, Royal Mail discovered that the staff were not able to cope with the volume of parcel mail required of them, using the new modernisation techniques. The modernisation procedures were calculated based on a national average of 21 parcels per 400 delivery points and Woking’s delivery requirements must cope with almost double that amount of parcels – 40 parcels per 400 delivery points. Royal Mail addressed this by employing 3 additional staff and 3 vans to cope with the backlog.

2.         Postal staff suddenly had to cope with unfamiliar modernisation techniques which significantly slowed down their deliveries and negatively affected staff morale. Royal Mail increased engagement with staff to help implement more manageable routes and ‘Intelligent Walk Sorting’ was implemented in October 2011.  This procedure frees up postmen to focus on delivering, rather than sorting mail.  Some post, however, still requires manual sorting, but to a lesser degree.

3.         In July 2011, Royal Mail reported in their Quality of Service Report that their performance delivery target was a low 81.3% for the GU area during the spring quarter of 2011. This compared very poorly against 88.8% in the Redhill area and against a national performance average of over 90%. Royal Mail reported at tonight’s meeting that Woking has exceeded its target of 91.5%. They also reported that the Woking Sorting Office was cleared of all deliveries on Christmas Eve.

4.         Starting on 23 January 2012 and running until April, Royal Mail will be working with staff, including the local area representative for the Commercial Workers Union (CWU), to conduct an internal review.

5.         The Knaphill Sorting Office will start undergoing modernisation from April this year and both Royal Mail and Councillors agreed to work together to ensure that this transition runs as smoothly as possible.

At the meeting, apart from raising some concerns about mail still arriving late in certain areas or piling up before being delivered every few days, councillors praised the progress that Royal Mail have been making and urged Royal Mail to continue improving service delivery. Royal Mail and the Councillors agreed that there had been a marked drop in the number of complaints submitted as a result of the action Royal Mail took to remedy the problems they experienced.

I am very pleased at the progress Royal Mail are making and we urge them to continue to improve the mail service for our residents. We, as Councillors, have shown that services from companies, can be held to account for poor service and that local politicians have a key role in standing up for residents and achieving positive results. We will continue that role through our active link with the Royal Mail to raise any concerns, as and when they arise.

Councillor Ian Eastwood and I want to wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year in 2012. May it be a very good year for you and your families.

In 2012 we will continue to stand up for you in fighting your corner. Please contact me in the new year if you have any concerns that you would like me to take up. We hope you received our calendar in the post. If not, please contact me for one.

See today’s press release below:

On Monday, 12 September 2011 at 7pm, representatives from South West Trains, Network Rail and the British Transport Police spoke to Woking Councillors at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting in Woking Council Chamber.

 Andy Pitt, Managing Director of South West Trains, Richard O’Brien, Managing Director (Wessex) of Network Rail and Superintendent Al Lawson, British Transport Police attended the meeting to present the key findings of the independent report carried out following the service disruption on Thursday 9 June, along with details of the improvements they have already made and future recommendations.

This meeting was called by Lib Dem Deputy Leader Cllr Denzil Coulson, as Chairman of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, after a series of concerns were raised by commuters directly affected by the train travel disruption on Thursday 9 June. Commuters were left stranded on over 60 trains between Waterloo and Woking stations for up to 6 hours without any effective crisis management in place. 

Both Mr Pitt and Mr O’Brien admitted the following failures that led to the stranding of 1,000s of passengers on 9 June:

 1.         There was a complete breakdown of communication between the Control Centre at Waterloo Station, the signallers on the tracks and the train drivers. The Control Centre had no information from site to deal with the operational problems of over 60 trains stranded on the tracks. At 7:30pm, there was also a loss of power to the Cab Secure Radio, which made communication with drivers virtually impossible.

2.         At 6:38pm, the cable at Sturt Lane Sub Station had been cut by thieves causing a loss of signalling at Woking, Ash Vale, Aldershot  and Guildford by 6:41pm.

3.         There are always two supplies to every signalling system. When the one supply was cut, there was a power surge which blew out all the signalling circuits btw 7pm and 8:30pm in the affected area.  

4.         On-call emergency arrangements were not fully triggered as they thought things would return to normal quickly. There was also no full mobilisation of crisis management.

5.         Most of the trains were held in holding areas for about 4 to 5 hours making it impossible for passengers to leave unless they detrained as 20 to 30 people did that night. 

6.         Both Network Rail and South West Trains admitted that they could have done more to inform and help passengers.

After the briefing of what went wrong on the 9^th June, Mr Pitt and Mr O’Brien outlined what Network Rail and South West Trains have done to deal with crises like this in the future:

1.         They have rebriefed all Route Control Managers on better crisis management such as timely activation of emergency on-call support. 

2.         Improved liaison between the Control Centre and signallers so that there is clearer timely information for passengers.

3.         There has been a full review of the train service contingency plan.

4.         They have introduced a SWT Trains On Call Director to deal with future train disruption.

5.         They will hold trains at stations where possible and not in holding areas on the lines between stations if future signalling problems occur.

6.         There is now a supply of water on the majority of trains for emergencies.

7.         SWT plan to roll out mobile versions of their website to give timely information to passengers.

8.         They are also rolling out 850 Blackberry devices to staff to disseminate information when the power to communication systems breaks down.

Cllr Denzil Coulson said:

“After listening to last night’s presentation by South West Trains and Network Rail, I was horrified to hear of the scale of the communication breakdown that led to 1,000s of passengers being stranded on the lines on over 60 trains for 4 to 5 hours. This proves that we were totally justified in bringing the rail bosses to account over their handling of this crisis.

“Nevertheless, I am encouraged that some of their contingency plans were applied after the latest cable theft caused train delays between Portsmouth, Havant and London yesterday. Their response to the site problems began at 4am Monday morning and the Network Rail alternative train plan was communicated at 6am to the media and the train guards. 

“However, I am very concerned about the impact of the Olympic Games on the rail networks next year as both Mr Pitt and Mr O’Brien admitted that the rail network is already running at maximum capacity. They have effectively passed the buck to the Government to sort out the problem of capacity and have asked us to lobby MPs to deal with this before it turns into a bigger problem. We have asked the rail bosses to report back to us in February especially with regard to Olympic planning.”