Sending Letters
Letters are a fourth channel on the same messaging subsystem. The platform hands the document to a print and post provider, who prints it, encloses it and posts it.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Communication:
- Letters — the console — compose, queue and track
- Letter Stationery — letterheads and paper definitions
- Postal Address Sources — where addresses are taken from
- Service Methods — the deemed-service rule for each posting class
Why physical mail still matters
For statutory casework it is frequently required rather than preferred. Some notices must be served by post. Some recipients have no email and will never have one. And for anything that may be challenged, a posted letter with a third-party despatch record is stronger evidence than an email you sent yourself.
Providers
GOV.UK Notify, Lob, ClickSend Post and PostGrid. Public sector organisations already using Notify for email and text can add letters on the same account, which is usually the path of least resistance.
Stationery
Letter Stationery defines the letterhead and paper. Configure it once centrally rather than embedding a letterhead in every template — when the logo, the address or the accessibility statement changes, you will want exactly one place to change it.
Addresses
Postal Address Sources defines where the address comes from. An address assembled ad hoc in each template is how letters get sent to an old address long after the record was updated: correcting the record does not correct the template.
Take the address from a defined source, and correcting it once corrects it everywhere.
The dispatch task
Letters queue and are sent by the Letter Dispatch task, which ships disabled and should run every few minutes. Letters sitting unsent are almost always this — the queue is filling and nothing is draining it.
Deadlines and print cut-offs
A letter takes days. Where it discharges a statutory obligation the deadline usually concerns despatch rather than arrival, but confirm which, because the two can be several days apart.
Build the print provider's daily cut-off into your timing. A letter queued at 5pm is not a letter posted that day, and a deadline calculated as though it were will be missed by exactly one day — repeatedly, and always at the worst time.
Worked example
A licensing team must serve a decision notice within five working days. The letter is generated at decision, queued, and despatched by the task within minutes. The despatch confirmation returns from the provider and is stored on the case, and the appeal-window obligation derives from the deemed service date rather than the queue date.
Recommendations
- Configure stationery and address sources before your first letter, not after.
- Know your provider's cut-off time and build it into any deadline calculation.
- Record returned mail against the address, not just the case.
- Do not post what could reasonably be emailed — reserve it for what requires it or what the recipient needs.