First-class delivery improved to 85% from 76% year-over-year, but remains 5 percentage points below Ofcom's 90% target through June 2026. Royal Mail faces ongoing regulatory scrutiny, including a record £21m fine last year and current investigation, amid complaints of months-long delays in some regions.
Royal Mail misses targets again but claims progress in turnaround effort
Residents in Gloucester and Worcestershire experienced months-long postal delays affecting hospital appointments and critical communications.
The gap between what Royal Mail claims and what people actually experience
Mark
Why does Royal Mail keep missing these targets if they're investing so much money and claiming progress?
Mimi
Because the targets are genuinely difficult to hit at scale, and because the business itself is shrinking. Fewer letters means fewer routes, fewer economies of scale. They're improving, but they're improving from a very low base.
Mark
The workers hiding mail from bosses—that's a sign the targets themselves might be the problem, isn't it?
Mimi
It's a sign that the pressure to hit the targets created perverse incentives. When you're measured on a number, people will game the number. That doesn't mean the targets are wrong, but it does mean the company culture around them became toxic.
Mark
What happens if they miss the May 2027 deadline?
Mimi
Ofcom will likely fine them again, possibly larger. But more importantly, the public loses faith that the service can be fixed at all. At some point, people stop expecting their post to arrive on time.
Mark
Is this a problem that money can solve?
Mimi
Not entirely. You can invest in sorting machines and vehicles, but you can't invest your way out of the fact that letter volumes are declining. The real question is whether the universal postal service is economically viable anymore, or whether it's become a public service that needs to be subsidized like transit.
Il Polso
- First-class delivery improved to 85% from 76% year-over-year, but remains 5 points below Ofcom's 90% target
- Record £21 million fine imposed by Ofcom in October 2025 for missing targets
- £500 million investment committed over five years with May 2027 deadline to meet regulatory targets
- Workers instructed to hide mail from supervisors to create appearance of meeting targets
- Residents in Worcestershire missed hospital appointments due to weeks-long postal delays
First-class delivery improved to 85% from 76% year-over-year, but remains 5 percentage points below Ofcom's 90% target through June 2026. Royal Mail faces ongoing regulatory scrutiny, including a record £21m fine last year and current investigation, amid complaints of months-long delays in some regions.
Royal Mail improved delivery performance year-over-year but still fell short of regulator Ofcom's targets, delivering 85% of first-class mail next-day versus the 90% requirement.
Royal Mail has inched forward on delivery performance but remains stuck below the regulatory bar it is supposed to clear. Between March and June, the postal service delivered 85 percent of first-class letters the next day—a meaningful jump from 76 percent in the same window a year earlier. Yet Ofcom, the regulator that sets the rules, demands 90 percent. Second-class mail fared similarly: 91 percent arrived within three days, up slightly from before, but the target sits at 95 percent.
The company framed these numbers as vindication of its turnaround strategy. Jamie Stephenson, the chief operating officer, called the results encouraging and said first-class performance was tracking ahead of where the improvement plan projected it would be by this stage. Second-class was on track. The firm, owned by International Distribution Services and recently acquired by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, has committed £500 million over five years to modernize its network and meet Ofcom's targets by May 2027.
But the gap between what Royal Mail claims and what people actually experience remains wide. In March, postal workers told the BBC they had been instructed to move or hide mail from supervisors to create the appearance of meeting targets. Residents in Gloucester received apologies after months of delays became so severe the company admitted its service was "totally unacceptable." More recently, people in Worcestershire complained of weeks-long delays for critical post, with some missing hospital appointments as a result.
Royal Mail has been under investigation by Ofcom for the second consecutive year. Last October, the regulator imposed a record £21 million fine for missing targets in 2024-25. The company operates in a market that has fundamentally shifted: fewer people send letters, competition from private delivery firms has intensified, and the economics of the universal postal service have grown more fragile.
Stephenson acknowledged in his statement that there is "more to do." He pointed to the extreme heat that postal workers had endured recently as one of the pressures on the system. The company is making significant changes across its network, he said, and none of the progress would be possible without the effort of frontline staff. The question hanging over Royal Mail now is whether a £500 million investment and a May 2027 deadline will be enough to close a gap that has proven stubborn for years, or whether the structural problems facing the postal service run deeper than money and time can fix.
Citazioni salienti
First Class performance is well ahead of where we expected to be at this stage of our Improvement Plan, while Second Class is tracking in line with the plan.— Jamie Stephenson, Royal Mail chief operating officer
We know there is more to do. We are investing £500 million over five years and making significant changes across our network.— Jamie Stephenson, Royal Mail chief operating officer
Vuoi la storia completa?
Leggi l'originale su BBC News ↗
Economy & Finance