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Ofcom yesterday opened an investigation into Royal Mail’s failure to meet its delivery targets for 2022/23.

Under our rules, Royal Mail is required to meet specific performance targets across the year, excluding the Christmas period. Among other targets, Royal Mail must:

• deliver 93% of First Class mail within one working day of collection;
• deliver 98.5% of Second Class mail within three working days of collection; and
• complete 99.9% of delivery routes on each day that a delivery is required.

Royal Mail has today announced that it did not meet the above performance targets in 2022/23, as it:

• delivered 73.7% of First Class mail within one working day;
• delivered 90.7% of Second Class mail within three working days; and
• completed 89.35% of delivery routes for each day on which a delivery was required.

Ofcom takes quality of service very seriously. In deciding whether the company is in breach of its obligations, we will consider if there were any exceptional events – beyond the company’s control – that may have explained why it missed its targets.

If it does not provide a satisfactory explanation and we determine that Royal Mail has failed to comply with its obligations, we may consider whether to impose a financial penalty.

Last year, we warned the company that it could no longer use the impact of Covid-19 as an excuse for poor delivery performance.