Departments: Postal Services

Mr. Jenkins
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.

Mr. Malik
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.

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|                   |2002-03|2003-04|2004-05|2005-06|2006-07|
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|Royal Mail         |255,698|246,340|216,831|203,763|170,219|
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|Commercial carriers|199,123|134,129|118,583|105,800|93,386 |
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