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Royal Mail delivered one in four first-class letters late since being taken over by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky. Its service obligation requires it to deliver 93% of first-class post within one working day of collection, and 98.5% of second-class post within three working days.
Despite these targets set by Ofcom, the postal service delivered 75.9% of first-class mail and 89.3% of second-class mail on time between the end of March and June – after it increased the price of a first-class stamp to £1.70. Shockingly, this is still an improvement on the previous quarter. The figures are also the first to be released since Kretinsky’s £3.6 billion takeover, which put Royal Mail under foreign ownership for the first time ever.
The postal service added that 3% of first-class post was not delivered within three days, but claimed it was working towards a “more reliable” service.
It said it was recruiting more frontline staff and “simplifying the network to make it more reliable and resilient”.
Jamie Stephenson, interim CEO of Royal Mail, said: “Timely letter deliveries really matter to our customers, and they matter to us too.
“We are taking targeted steps to improve reliability, and we remain focused on delivering a better service for all our customers every day.”
This is not the first time the company has failed to meet its targets. In December last year, it was fined a record sum of £10.5 million for missing targets, and the year before it was fined £5.6 million.
Despite this, Royal Mail has still decided to slash services. In July, the company announced it was scrapping Saturday deliveries for second-class post, and would only deliver it on alternate weekdays.
Then from April 2026, it will only be required to deliver 90% of first-class post the following day and 95% of second-class post within three working days.
A Government spokesman said: “The public expects a well-run postal service, with letters arriving on time across the country without it costing the Earth.
“We now need Royal Mail to work with unions and posties to deliver a service that people expect, and this includes maintaining the principle of one price to send a letter anywhere in the UK.”
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