The postal regulator has launched an investigation into Royal Mail for missing its annual delivery targets, with almost a quarter of first-class mail arriving late.
The company, which has been fined more than £16m in the last two years for failing to meet the delivery targets set by Ofcom, said 23.5% of first-class mail failed to arrive on time in the year to the end of March.
This is a slight improvement on the previous year, when more than a quarter of first-class mail failed to arrive within the one-working-day target set by the regulator.
Under the watchdog’s rules, 93% of first-class mail must be delivered within one working day of collection, excluding Christmas.
The latest delivery figures published by Royal Mail on Friday showed that it managed to deliver 92.2% of second-class mail within the three-working-day limit set by Ofcom.
“We will investigate whether there are reasonable grounds for believing that Royal Mail has failed to comply with its obligations in 2024-25,” said a spokesperson for Ofcom. “If we determine that Royal Mail has failed to comply with its obligations, we will consider whether to impose a financial penalty.”
In December 2024, Ofcom fined the company £10.5m for failing to meet its delivery targets. The previous year, the postal regulator fined Royal Mail £5.6m for the same failure of its regulatory obligations.
Alistair Cochrane, Royal Mail’s chief operating officer, admitted that the company’s quality of service was “not where we want it to be”.
“We will continue to work hard to deliver the standards our customers expect,” he said. “We are actively modernising Royal Mail, and while these efforts are beginning to deliver results, we know there is still more to do.”
Last month, the Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský’s EP Group completed a £3.6bn takeover of International Distributions Services, the owner of Royal Mail.
Cochrane said Royal Mail would cooperate with Ofcom’s investigation but said the business was facing structural challenges and needed urgent reform of the universal service obligation to deliver at one-price nationwide six days a week.
Earlier this year, Ofcom launched a consultation proposing that Royal Mail should be allowed to deliver second-class letters on alternate weekdays and to stop Saturday deliveries under changes to postal service rules.
Ofcom said cutting the deliveries to every other weekday with a price cap on second-class stamps, while maintaining first-class letters six days a week, would still meet the public’s needs.
Its provisional recommendations also included cutting delivery targets for first-class mail from 93% to 90% arriving the next day, and for second-class mail from 98.5% to 95% within three days.
Ofcom said it estimated the changes would enable Royal Mail to save between £250m and £425m each year.
Tom MacInnes, the director of policy at Citizens Advice, said: “ Our research has shown the damaging consequences of late post, like missed health appointments, fines, bills and vital government communications. But with no alternative provider to choose from, people are forced to grapple with poor service, yearon year.
“With Ofcom considering relaxing the current delivery targets set for Royal Mail as part of the universal service obligation review, reliability remains a huge concern. The regulator must get off the sidelines and make the company do what it should have been doing all along – giving paying customers the service they deserve.”
