Royal Mail apologises for letter delays amid surging staff absences

Royal Mail has apologised after soaring staff absences caused the postal service to miss targets for millions of letter deliveries.

The formerly state-owned company said just 85.6pc of first class post was delivered on time during the last week of January, below its statutory target of 93pc. 

Delivery times for the last three months of 2021 were also below the standard it is supposed to guarantee, with only 76.8pc of first class mail delivered on time and only 93.8p of second class mail. 

It comes after Royal Mail, which employs around 140,000 people, was rocked by unprecedented staff absences as the omicron variant swept through Britain.

Around 15,000 Royal Mail workers were off sick or isolating at one stage, double the usual number for the winter period.

The crisis left households waiting weeks for post that should arrive in just one or two days, including expensive tracked packages, Christmas cards, legal documents and hospital appointment letters. 

Ricky McAulay, Royal Mail’s operations development director, said: “It has been a challenging period and I would like to apologise to any of our customers who have experienced delays in their local areas recently. 

“Improving service levels is our number one priority.”

He said Royal Mail has spent more than £340m on overtime pay, temporary staff, sick pay and extra support for the offices most affected.

However, the poor performance for deliveries could put the company on a collision course with communications regulator Ofcom, which can hand out fines if the statutory targets are missed. 

Under the “universal service obligation”, Royal Mail has a legal duty to guarantee deliveries within a certain time.

It stipulates that 93pc of all first-class post must be delivered within one working day of collection and 98.5pc of second-class post within three working days.

But while Royal Mail’s performance is usually measured for the financial year to the end of March, Ofcom said the company will only be measured for September, October, November, January, February and March of this financial year due to the pandemic. December is never counted.

If the average delivery times for those six months are found to be below-standard, Ofcom could issue a fine. 

The regulator has previously warned it is monitoring the situation closely.