Audit found package performance metrics missing important context and could mislead consumers. Image: Your Hand Please/Shutterstock.com
An inspector general report has raised issues with the Postal Service’s system for reporting delivery performance, saying that while it accurately reports data that is collected, the sampling method used “may not be representative” of overall performance.
The system gathers data from scans made by clerks at collection, mail carriers at delivery, and automated scans from mail-processing equipment, the report said. But in a sampling of routes, for example, auditors found that in 10 percent carriers did not complete more than half of sampling requests. There are valid reasons for not completing a request—such as if the carrier already has passed that address—but those are “significantly elevated amounts,” it said.
“There is no way to determine if the issues with scanning were caused by carrier non-compliance or limitations with the scanner; however, by excluding these scan classifications and not evaluating if carriers are complying with delivery scanning policies, there is an increased risk routes are not being represented equally in the data,” it said.
It further found that in about 2 percent of cases, carriers scanned more pieces of mail than requested, while in a much smaller share they scanned fewer.
“Additionally, we found package performance metrics publicized by the Postal Service are missing important context and could mislead readers,” the auditors said, because the data include same day delivery package services, which are dropped at delivery units by large mailers and delivered the same day. “This does not represent an individual mailer’s experience, as same day packages do not move through the entire network,” it said.
Postal management agreed with a recommendation to determine the cost to develop a system to track carrier compliance and to implement it if feasible, and said it already has put in place a system to limit scanning by carriers to the number requested. However, management disagreed with a recommendation to exclude same day delivery packages from the package delivery service data, saying that would lead to incomplete results and put the Postal Service at a competitive disadvantage. The IG reiterated the recommendation and said it considers the matter unresolved.
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