PostWatch releases 2018 annual report

Friday 15 March 2019

PostWatch Guernsey, which was set up as an independent Guernsey Post watchdog, has released its annual report for 2018.

The organisation has highlighted a number of issues throughout the year including tariff increases and pricing errors.

PostWatch has congratulated the utility for dealing with "challenging times" while still making a profit over the financial year April 2017 to March 2018, as well as once again achieving the Investors in People Gold Standard.

However, it did raise concerns over operating costs, which it says will need to be contained if tariff increases are to be kept to a minimum.

Another concern for PostWatch was Jersey Post's request to amend its Quality of Service targets at the beginning of the year. Although it was stated the change would not affect Guernsey post, the organisation thought it could in the future and responded to CICRA's public consultation on the matter. It was later noted the proposed QoS amendments had been withdrawn.

Meanwhile, despite seeing a "regretful" rise in tariff costs in 2018, PostWatch used the report to point out it is still "significantly cheaper" to send a standard letter from Guernsey to the UK than to send the same letter from the mainland to the island.

This year, the organisation has said it will work with Guernsey Post to see if more extensive software testing can be done, after a software error just before Christmas calculated the wrong price for sending a parcel to certain destinations through the tracked and signed service. The issue was highlighted and resolved before Christmas, although names of the previous senders could not be found.

Overall PostWatch said 2018 was a "broadly successful" year, achieved particularly by Guernsey Post's "on-going willingness" to provide the organisation with confidential data.

You can read the full report on guernseypost.com.