MEASURING AND IMPROVING TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY IN UK POST OFFICE COUNTERS USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

This paper sought to establish how technically efficient Post Office Counters is nationally and regionally. The method by which this was determined is data envelopment analysis, applied to data for 1989 on 1281 Crown post offices. The input used was labour, and outputs consisted of average waiting times as a measure of quality of service, and nine different categories of counter transactions. Nationally it was found that technical efficiency could be significantly improved by making more efficient use of labour inputs and reducing average waiting times. Wide disparities were found in regional efficiency and it was hypothesized that these relative differences were due to differing working practices, turnovers of staff and local labour market conditions. It was also concluded for the period studied that some structural inefficiency existed due to the existence of inefficient working practices and the lack of computerization of transaction procedures.