This week on a single day I received three letters from my mother. One carried a 1st Class stamp and took 9 days to arrive. The other two carried 2nd Class stamps and took 4 days to arrive. That’s pretty much typical of the late delivery experience many have received from Royal Mail over the past two years and it’s why Ofcom have announced a £10.5 million fine for failing to meet their regulatory obligations in the 2023/24 financial year.
What’s astounding is that a 1st Class stamp now costs almost double that of a 2nd Class stamp, and yet Royal Mail are still inflicting late delivery on consumers, even those paying their exorbitant prices for what should be a next day letter delivery.
This is the second time Ofcom have found the Royal Mail to be in breach of its regulatory obligations in recent years, after they imposed a fine of £5.6m in November 2023 for its performance in 2022/23.
Ofcom’s rules require Royal Mail to deliver, in each financial year, 93% of 1st Class mail within one working day of collection and 98.5% of 2nd Class mail within three working days of collection. From April 2023 to March 2024, Royal Mail only delivered 74.7% of 1st Class mail on time and 92.7% of 2nd Class mail on time.
Currently for the first half of the 2024/25 financial year, Royal Mail have reduced late delivery marginally, delivering 77.7% of 1st Class mail on time and 93.4% of 2nd Class mail on time. What this means is that if you are still paying £1.65 with the expectation of a 1st Class letter being delivered tomorrow you’re quite often wasting your money and might as well accept a slow delivery for the cost of an £0.85 2nd Class stamp.
What is worth pointing out is that while Royal Mail appear incapable of delivering 1st Class letters to me the next working day after they are posted, they are amazingly reliable at delivering parcels. It’s also worth noting that parcel services aren’t included in the regulatory standards or in Royal Mail Quality of Service reports, so we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that parcels services are anywhere near as unreliable as letters… they’re almost certainly not.
With millions of letters arriving late, far too many people aren’t getting what they pay for when they buy a stamp. Royal Mail’s poor service is now eroding public trust in one of the UK’s oldest institutions.
This is the second time we’ve fined the company since the pandemic. Royal Mail has provided an improvement plan, and we’re seeing some signs of progress, but it must go further and faster to deliver the service that people expect.
– Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom Director of Enforcement
We acknowledge the decision made today by Ofcom. Throughout this year we have continued to implement substantial changes to drive improvements. This is shown in our latest quality of service results with both First and Second Class mail improving year-on-year. Ofcom also note that we are ‘on a recovery path to significantly improve performance’.
Delivering great quality of service is extremely important to us and we are making the necessary changes to deliver for our customers. However, it is essential that these efforts are backed by urgent reform of the Universal Service, restoring it to a level that meets the needs of today’s postal users, not the needs of customers 20 years ago. Combined this will help create a modern, sustainable and reliable service for future generations.
In April, we submitted our proposed reforms on the Universal Service. This proposal is designed to protect what matters most to customers. We look forward to Ofcom’s upcoming consultation in January which will enable the required regulatory changes to be made by summer.
– Royal Mail
