A councillor claims that democracy is under threat after confidential meeting papers arrived at his house a month late due to postal service delays.

When Damian Haywood didn’t receive the documents for a meeting on September 23, he thought little of it and believed Oxfordshire County Council had not sent them.

So he was startled when the envelope finally arrived on Monday (October 23).  

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“I was just aghast when I saw it. I genuinely thought they just hadn’t posted it because they had never arrived,” the Iffley Fields and St Mary’s councillor said.

“How are we as councillors supposed to participate in democracy on behalf of our residents if we are not receiving the appropriate papers and information for us to perform our jobs?”

Royal Mail said it was experiencing delays in Oxford due to lower levels of staffing than usual.

Mr Haywood said post now only arrives at his East Oxford house once every two weeks, compared to two or three times a week a year ago.

The meeting documents had been posted first class on September 18 and were intended to arrive before the scrutiny committee meeting.

Mr Haywood said: “I don’t usually get my council papers by post because I can access them on the web, but this time they posted them for some reason.

“For me it doesn’t really matter in that sense, but it’s just the fact that other councillors rely on the papers much more than I do.

"They may want to make notes or have difficulty reading from screens.

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“That’s why it is unacceptable they were so astonishingly late.

“We can’t scrutinise things properly unless we receive the adequate information.”

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We are committed to restoring our quality of service to our customers.

“We have plans in place and dedicated teams responsible for improving deliveries in Oxford and at our delivery offices nationwide.

“Over the last 12 weeks we have recruited around 6,000 postmen and women and are continuing to recruit c.500 permanent positions a week in delivery.

“To support the health of our employees and assist them in their return to work, we have introduced a wellbeing programme which provides colleagues with free, confidential, and independent healthcare support, including unlimited 24/7 access to an online GP.

“In the lead up to Christmas, we are taking on 16,000 temporary workers, more vehicles and additional parcel sorting sites to handle double the normal volume of parcels we expect over the period.

“These actions plus others are already making a difference in some areas and we are confident that they will continue to improve quality of service for our customers.”