Compensation payouts to businesses and individuals in Cardiff from the Post Office for delays losses and thefts rose by £12,000 in the last year, it has been revealed.
Assembly Member for South Wales Central Chris Franks has unpicked figures published by Royal Mail which show an increase in the number claims for loss of mail in Cardiff in the last year.
Royal Mail paid out £115,000 in total in the last year to those in the CF postcode area - £103,000 was paid out in 2008/2009.
Of this figure, £81,930 was paid out to 4,841 claimants for loss of mail – up £8,000 on the previous year – and total complaints across all categories came to 13,532 with 7,690 receiving compensation – a rise from 4,922 in the previous year.
Franks examined the figures which are published on a post code basis here. He said:
"It is of concern that compensation pay-outs in the three postal code areas in south and west Wales rose to more than £250,000. This is a significant amount of public money.
"I'm aware of the tremendous commitment of Royal Mail staff but management clearly needs to address issues which lead to complaints. Compensation is no consolation to an individual or business. They want their mail delivered promptly."
But Royal Mail downplayed the figures, and remarked they should be taken it conjunction with numbers for the overall mail-outs to Cardiff residents.
A Royal Mail spokesperson said:
"Nationally, Royal Mail delivers around 71 million items of mail on a typical working day and only a tiny fraction of customers ever have to raise concerns with us. In fact the number of complaints amounts to around one for every 15,500 items we handle.
"Nevertheless, Royal Mail takes every complaint extremely seriously and makes every effort to resolve any issues to the satisfaction of our customers.
"In Wales, our postmen and women handle almost nine million items of mail each day. In the NP and CF postcode areas, complaints have occurred in only a tiny fraction of the mail we handle.
"Royal Mail is focussed on providing the best possible customer service and we apologise to anyone who has experienced a problem. If this is the case, we advise customers to contact Royal Mail Customer Services on 08457 740740."
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