Royal Mail has missed its delivery targets for the latest quarter despite a sharp improvement in performance, as the postal group presses ahead with a sweeping overhaul that will see second-class letters no longer delivered on Saturdays.
The company delivered 85 per cent of first-class mail the next working day in the first quarter, below the 90 per cent target set by Ofcom.
Second-class performance was also short of the regulator’s target, with 91.4 per cent of letters arriving within three working days compared with the required 95 per cent.
The figures nevertheless represent a substantial improvement on a year earlier, when just 76 per cent of first-class mail and 89.3 per cent of second-class post met the required delivery times.
Ofcom lowered the targets from April 1 as part of reforms to the universal postal service, reducing the first-class requirement from 93 per cent and second-class requirement from 98.5 per cent.
Royal Mail said it remained on course to meet the new targets by May 2027, under a five-year improvement programme involving £500 million of investment.
Jamie Stephenson, Royal Mail’s chief operating officer, said the latest results showed the turnaround programme was beginning to deliver.
“These results are encouraging and show that the work we are doing to improve the service is having an impact,” he said.
“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.”
But he acknowledged that “we know there is more to do”.
The performance figures come as Royal Mail accelerates the biggest restructuring of its delivery network in decades.
Ofcom approved reforms last year allowing second-class letters to be delivered on alternate weekdays, reflecting the steep decline in traditional letter volumes.
Royal Mail expects the new delivery model to be operating across all 1,200 of its delivery offices by Christmas, following delays caused by negotiations with trade unions.
The company is owned by International Distribution Services, which was acquired last year by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
The latest figures also highlight the continued pressure on Royal Mail to improve service standards as demand shifts away from traditional letters towards parcels.
Ofcom opened an investigation in June into Royal Mail’s failure to meet its delivery targets for the second consecutive year in the 12 months to the end of March.
The regulator fined the company a record £21 million last October after it missed its targets in 2024-25.
Although Ofcom reduced the headline delivery requirements this year, it introduced a new enforceable backstop requiring 99 per cent of mail to arrive no more than two days late.
Royal Mail missed that threshold too, although it narrowed the shortfall. Some 98.1 per cent of first-class letters were delivered within three days, while 98.4 per cent of second-class letters arrived within five days.
The challenge comes as Royal Mail grapples with sharply rising costs and a structural decline in letter volumes.
Full-year results published in June showed operating profit had more than halved to £96 million, with labour costs rising following increases in the minimum wage and the company facing an additional £133 million employee tax bill.
Parcel volumes increased 7 per cent to 1.4 billion during the year, underlining the growing importance of the parcels business.
But addressed letter volumes fell 10 per cent to 5.7 billion.
Royal Mail is therefore attempting to improve reliability while fundamentally reshaping a network built for an era when millions more letters were sent each day.
The latest figures suggest the turnaround is beginning to gain traction, but the company remains some distance from meeting even the newly reduced regulatory standards.
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