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Departments: Postal Services

Volume 463: debated on Monday 23 July 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what volume of correspondence his Department sent (a) by Royal Mail and (b) by other commercial delivery services in each of the last five years; and what the reasons were for the use of other commercial delivery services. (150456)

The following table shows the volume of mail sent by DFID using Royal Mail and other commercial carriers in the last five years. Other commercial carriers have been used on the grounds of urgency, value for money and security. The vast majority of the mail by commercial carrier is in respect of a point-to-point contracted service between our two UK offices.

2002-03

2003-04

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

Royal Mail

255,698

246,340

216,831

203,763

170,219

Commercial carriers

199,123

134,129

118,583

105,800

93,386