BELEAGUERED Royal Mail bosses have two stock responses to the relentless stream of bad news. Either deny everything, or say all will be well soon.

Miss every one of 15 performance targets? Insist the service will be better the moment a radical reorganisation is completed.

Presented with evidence of unopened bags of mail in York sorting offices, and first class letters being franked the day after they were posted? Maintain that "we are meeting the terms of our postal delivery service".

So today's Royal Mail response to unrest among York postal workers - "further improvements have been planned" - is neither surprising nor reassuring.

We should be pleased to learn that new targets have been introduced on delivery times. For a long time now, we have been monitoring complaints from businesses and householders about delayed and missing post.

But any target must be realistic. If it is not, it will unfairly brand staff as failures while making no difference to the quality of service.

Union representative Dave Dowling says workers serving the city centre have realistic delivery targets, while those serving other parts of York do not.

Two factors add credence to his claim. First, this is not only a York problem: anger over a similar scheme is reported in parts of Ryedale. Second, the Royal Mail have come under heaviest fire from business customers in the city centre. That pressure may have persuaded York bosses to divert resources away from lower profile postcodes and into YO1.

Whatever the truth, no one wants a strike. A swift and amicable settlement to this dispute is needed now. The message to Royal Mail bosses and the unions is simple: get it sorted.

Updated: 09:40 Friday, July 02, 2004