Royal Mail: Rural Areas

Mr. Letwin
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what recent assessment he has made of the level of service provided by Royal Mail to customers in rural areas; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. McFadden
Postcomm, the industry regulator, monitors Royal Mail's quality of service performance in all postcode areas on a quarterly basis. Postcomm also commissions an annual survey of residential and SME customers, which involves asking questions of customers in rural and deep rural areas about their use of mail services and how satisfied they are as senders and recipients of mail.

In the latest 2008 survey, all respondents were asked to rate their overall satisfaction with Royal Mail on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 representing extremely satisfied and 1 extremely dissatisfied).

The total sample gave Royal Mail a mean score of 8.02. A breakdown of the sample showed that deep rural customers gave Royal Mail a higher mean score of 8.47. More information can be found on Postcomm's website:

http://www.psc.gov.uk/about-the-mail-market/customer-needs-survey.html