Ofcom launches investigation into Royal Mail delivery target failures

Ofcom has opened an investigation into Royal Mail’s failure to meet its delivery targets for the last year, it has said.

Under the watchdog’s targets, 90% of first-class mail should be delivered the next day, and 95% of second-class mail should be delivered within three days.

But Royal Mail announced last week that it had missed targets for another year running, achieving 75.7% of first-class mail arriving the next working day over the 12 months to the end of March, according to the latest quality of service report.

This was slightly less than the 76.3% achieved the prior year.

For second-class mail, 90.2% was delivered within three working days – less than the 92.2% achieved the year before.

Last July, Ofcom “modernised” obligations placed on Royal Mail to reflect steep declines in the number of letters being sent, allowing second-class letters to be delivered on alternate weekdays among changes to delivery targets.

Royal Mail expected to complete it rollout of the new delivery model by Christmas, Ofcom said.

While Royal Mail was now making progress, it had taken almost a year to begin the process of implementing the delivery reforms and service levels remained unacceptable, the regulator added.

Ofcom enforcement director Ian Strawhorne said: “A reliable postal service is vital to many people across the country.

“We share the deep frustrations of customers who have missed important letters because of Royal Mail’s consistent failure to improve its service over the years.

“While the company is now making progress through its improvement plan, we will continue to hold it to account for its unacceptable performance to date.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Improving quality of service is a top priority and we are delivering a major programme of change through the rollout of our new delivery model which underpins our Improvement Plan, backed by £500 million of investment over five years.

“These reforms are designed to deliver long-term quality improvements for customers as we modernise the postal service and deploy the new delivery model, enabled by the changes to the Universal Service regulations that Ofcom introduced in July 2025.

“At a time when significant investment is being made to improve reliability across the network, any financial penalty would reduce funding that could otherwise be used to support service improvements for customers. We will engage fully with Ofcom throughout their investigation.”