THE Royal Mail crisis threatens to “compromise the validity” of the Holyrood elections and the UK government must intervene, trade union body the STUC has said.

Raising the alarm earlier, postal union CWU said chronic understaffing in the privatised service — fuelled by a staggering 21 per cent of new employees leaving within 90 days — combined with the company’s new Optimised Delivery Model (ODM) was causing “significant backlogs of mail in many sorting offices and mail hubs.”

STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said: “The perilous state of Royal Mail should concern everyone across Scotland. 

“We all need a reliable, accessible and universal postal service that caters to the needs of society, not shareholders.

“With the election a mere number of weeks away, we simply cannot compromise the validity of that vote if Royal Mail fail to deliver election material or postal ballots as expected.

“This cannot go on and, on behalf of the CWU, we have made representation to the UK government to get unions, MPs, MSPs and Royal Mail around the table to demand a postal service fit for the future.”

The Department for Business and Trade was contacted for comment.