Producer Simon Barnes writes about the making of Post Office Undercover
We're sure it is no more than a coincidence but just two days before Adam Crozier announced he was leaving the Royal Mail to take up a plum position at ITV we'd hand-delivered a letter to him telling him we'd been working undercover inside his organization – for the third time.
In 2004 (Third Class Post) and again in 2005 (Re-Opening the Post) Dispatches carried out two undercover investigations into the Royal Mail. The now disbanded watchdog, Postwatch, had claimed Royal Mail was losing a million letters a week. Royal Mail denied the allegation. But in 2002 it had been losing a million pounds every working day and in 2004 it failed to hit any of its 15 performance targets in 2004.
So we decided to go undercover, starting at London's Paddington mail centre. It didn't take long for us to find some staff selling mobile phones, counterfeit trainers or playing football while they were supposed to be sorting the mail. Union reps called the shots on the delivery room floor and were so powerful some workers were able to refuse to do what management was asking of them. Mail got dumped; agency workers were sent out to deliver with little or no training; one postman smoked dope before he went out on his round and outdated equipment chewed up letters while another postie explained: 'It's a good job the public don't see this.'
Unfortunately for Crozier, the public was about to see it – all of it. And the longer we were in, the more we found. Third Class Post revealed serious breaches of security including our reporter's ability to enter a major sorting centre in Victoria without anyone asking for his ID.
After the film, Royal Mail was investigated by the industry regulator, Postcomm, and fined £9.62 million pounds for its failure to adequately protect the mail in its care. Royal Mail was given the power to carry out criminal record checks on all new recruits and it announced it was going to create a 'pool of high-calibre temporary workers'.
So when we went back undercover inside the Royal Mail the following year it was a surprise to discover an agency casual wearing an offender's criminal tag. Then we learnt the Metropolitan Police was in the middle of investigating a suspected £20 million stolen chequebook ring that had an insider at the Royal Mail.
We also found ourselves in familiar territory. One reporter managed to blag his way into several Royal Mail delivery depots without showing his ID. Another reporter filmed an agency employee casually flicking through a customer's holiday snaps when the envelope he was handling somehow came open and there was the ubiquitous industrial action.
After Re-Opening the Post was broadcast in 2005 Royal Mail said:
'Every year 22bn letters and parcels are sent through the post, with 99.93% of them arriving safely.'
Which seems fair enough, but failed to address the fact we had carried out an experiment sending cards containing vouchers to addresses around the country. Three of our cards were opened and the contents removed.
Since that second film there has been a lot of change at Royal Mail. In January 2009 it was announced all four of the company's branches were in profit for the first time in 20 years. Within the Royal Mail group 60,000 jobs have gone since 2002 and the company has gone from losing a million pounds every working day to making a million a day.
But the industrial relations that have dogged Royal Mail for so long haven't gone anywhere. Last year a national strike paralysed the country's postal system. A truce, designed to make sure your Christmas presents got delivered was finally brokered in November (2009). But what were Royal Mail workers striking about? And how well were our Christmas presents actually going to be delivered?
There was only one way to find out.
Post Office Undercover, Channel 4 Dispatches.
