Royal Mail and Keep Safe.This question really seemed to touch a nerve with many of you - the issue of Royal Mail's attempts to charge schools for holding the mail over the holiday period. As a result we have had several conversations with Royal Mail officials who are working at a nationwide level. And we've analysed what has happened to mail that has been sent to schools by Hamilton House Mailings plc, the organisation that pays for much of the work that the SEA does. I'll try and draw all this together in the report below.
Formally, Royal Mail has introduced the concept of charging any organisation (school, business...) where mail cannot be delivered for more than 3 days (excluding bank holidays and weekends) or for more than 4 days over the Xmas / New Year period (again excluding bank holidays and weekends).
However the process is one that is devolved to the local sorting office and local RM managers. So, as many of you reported, it is possible that in many areas the policy is not being implemented at all, or is being implemented but not to schools. But, if you are not seeing it at the moment, you might in the future, because there is a suggestion from RM that the central office will be looking at those areas not implementing the policy fully.
RM do not have a formal policy of notifying schools about the fact that mail will be returned if the school is deemed "shut" for more than 3 days. If you want your mail held for up to six weeks you have to apply to the regional sorting office. However, once again, some centres are taking the initiative and talking to schools first.
The whole process works informally. The post delivery officer ("postman" in the past) finds he/she can't deliver mail. He/she might assume the school is now shut for the holidays, or might note each day for three days before making a report that the school is "shut". From Royal Mail's point of view the school remains "shut" until the delivery person notices it is "open" - or you write to tell them.
One thing to notice is that as this policy spreads, it will affect not just the long holidays, but also half term weeks.
Does it matter? A number of administrators said that it was only junk mail that turned up at this time, so it didn't matter. I see the point, but if you have a school that suffers from declining numbers, and among all that junk mail is a letter from a prospective parent, and the parent then gets it back marked "school closed" or "gone away" then you lose a child - and hence some income.
Likewise we all know that teachers like to order things just before the end of term. If a supplier needs to report back on a problem with the order, and that letter doesn't get through, it means the teacher or yourself doesn't know about the problem, and nothing gets resolved.
Personally I'm not happy with RM's hit and miss approach - but also (and of course this is just my view - nothing more than that) I don't think allowing the mail to be returned is the best way forward. Although it might not be a major problem now, I believe that within one year RM will be implementing this process fully across the UK - and if you do nothing you will start to miss important communication.
So, what other alternatives are there...
From your responses we saw that:
15% of schools either have or will fit a large post box. This was the most common recommendation from administrators who replied to us. The notion of the box being damaged by vandals is there, but lockable delivery boxes are common in Europe and the US, and I am sure they can be implemented in the UK without a problem. 11% pay for Keep Safe so don’t see mail for the holiday periods - although very few schools are paying for each of the six holidays a year of over 3 working days. 18% collect the mail about once a week from post office - which is another way of doing it - although I suspect RM is going to insist in due course the mail is not left for more than 3 working days. 16% have made individual arrangements with the postman or local post office to have the mail delivered to a different address The remainder of schools have on-site people who will take in the mail - although there are problems if for security reasons the main door is locked because only one or two people are on site. So, that's the overall picture. But there is one final point. Dealing with e-mail and post is a major issue within most schools, and it is something that frustrates many administrators. The SEA sees the solution to the issue as one of its biggest challenges, and we have spent the past year experimenting with ways forward. We think we have found a solution that could - with your support - deliver a reduction of up to 50% in the number of emails for teachers and the amount of advertising direct mail that you have to handle. I will write about this separately, and we'll be introducing the programme at the start of the Autumn term. Tony Attwood School of Educational Administration
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