LOCAL MAIL DELIVERY TIME

LOCAL MAIL DELIVERY TIME

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(Late delivery of F1 tickets to YOG volunteers): **

15.

Mr Baey Yam Keng asked the Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts (a) what measures are in place to monitor local mail delivery time and ensure that it meets service levels; (b) if there have been more incidences of mail taking longer to reach their destinations; (c) what penalties Singapore Post is liable to if the service levels are not met and what have been imposed so far; and (d) if the recent late delivery of F1 tickets to YOG volunteers is due to slow processing by Singapore Post.

RAdm [NS] Lui Tuck Yew: I thank the Member of Parliament for his interest in the postal delivery system and measures in place that safeguard postal delivery service levels. I would like to take this opportunity to provide a brief overview of the regulation of local mail delivery, the service levels we can expect and how they are safeguarded.

Singapore Post, or SingPost, is designated as the Public Postal Licensee, and is required to comply with Quality of Service (QoS) standards that the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), has set out for the delivery of local ordinary mail. This is defined as basic letters that weigh up to 500g. For destinations within the Central Business District (CBD), the QoS standards require 99% of local ordinary mail, posted before stipulated collection times, to be delivered by the next working day, and 100% to be delivered by the second working day. For destinations outside the CBD, the delivery standard is 98% by the next working day, and 100% by the second working day. The stipulated collection times for Mondays to Thursdays are 7.00 pm for mail posted within the CBD, and 5.00 pm for mail posted outside the CBD. On Fridays, the collection times are extended by one hour, ie, 8.00 pm for mail posted within the CBD, and 6.00 pm for mail posted outside the CBD. There are also other QoS standards set out for the local processing of foreign ordinary mail. These QoS standards are measured monthly, and IDA requires SingPost to submit QoS reports every quarter to show its compliance. Members of the public can also view postal QoS information on IDA's website.

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Postal operators who fail to comply with IDA's postal QoS standards would be liable for a financial penalty of either S$1,000 or S$5,000; depending on which QoS indicator was breached. To date, IDA has not imposed any financial penalty on SingPost as it has generally been able to exceed the postal QoS standards. For example, the QoS report for April-June this year showed that 99.5% of local mails were delivered to destinations within the CBD by the next working day, and 98.6% to destinations outside the CBD, exceeding IDA's requirement of 99% and 98% respectively.

As an additional check, IDA actively monitors the complaints relating to the postal delivery service. From IDA's experience, the number of public complaints concerning postal delivery incidents has been low compared to the total volume of ordinary mail delivered by SingPost. For example, from January to June this year, there were 17 complaints to IDA, SingPost and the media on late or lost ordinary mail. During the same period, SingPost delivered about 384.7 million ordinary mail items. Nevertheless, IDA continues to work with SingPost to provide better levels of service and to meet the public's postal needs.

With regard to the recent delayed delivery of F1 tickets to Youth Olympic Games (YOG) volunteers, SingPost had conducted an internal investigation into the matter. We understand that envelopes containing the complimentary tickets for the YOG volunteers were hand-delivered to the SingPost office in two batches, on 21st and 22nd September. The tickets eventually reached the intended recipients on 23rd, 24th and, after the F1 race, on 27th September.

SingPost's investigations revealed that the second batch of tickets reached SingPost after the 5.00 pm collection time on Wednesday, 22nd September, and was treated as the next day's mail, which was Thursday's. SingPost also found that some of the mail items had to be repackaged and manually sorted because the packaging had became unsealed, and were of non-standard mail size, which could not be put through the automatic processing machine. Such manual handling would have reduced the prompt handling, postmarking and sorting of mail. Regrettably, some of the mail was only delivered on 27th September, after the F1 races, even though SingPost's delivery of Thursday's mail on the following Monday is consistent with the QoS requirement of delivering mail by the second working day.

I understand that SingPost will work more closely with their customers to prevent recurrences, especially for important and urgent mail.

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