Under the Access Letters Contract (ALC), customers posting on the NPP1, APP2 and Regional price plan can choose whether their conformance against the price plan benchmarks is measured using either their actual data (Mailmark or Dockethub/ Zonal Manifest upload data) or sampled data taken from the Mail Characteristics Survey (MCS). This optionality also applies to the Wholesale Parcels Contract (WPC), although customers cannot use Mailmark data as the source data if they opt to use their actual data for measurement.

MCS is a manual survey that relies on a representative sample of mail items. It was introduced long before the introduction of our Mailmark service options which give us an automated method of data capture. With Mailmark now making up 97% of overall Wholesale volume, and being item level data, Mailmark data provides actual posting information which we can use to effectively monitor customers’ contract performance.

Under the ALC, every NPP1, APP2 and Regional customer is now posting equal to or more than 85% of volume on Mailmark, which is the threshold we put in place for customers to be measured against their Mailmark data. Most contract holders are already being measured against their Mailmark data, reflecting what customers have previously fed back that they want the greatest degree of assurance of data accuracy.

Also, the ready availability of actual posting data, enables us to reduce costs across some parts of Royal Mail by removing physical sampling activity from some of our Mail Centres.

To ensure we use the most accurate data source, simplify the current contract monitoring process, and measure all customers in a uniform manner, we are amending the ALC and WPC so that, from 1 April 2025, MCS sampling data will no longer be an option available for customers to be measured against.

The appended ALC and WPC change notices gives effect to the above changes. 

Additionally, to streamline and reduce the complexity in the existing baseline model, we have decided to remove Wholesale MCS volume, which currently makes up just circa 3% of the overall baseline volume and is continuing to reduce as more volume converts to Mailmark.