Royal Mail to make huge change to deliveries in massive shake-up

ROYAL Mail will make a huge change to deliveries in a massive shake up for customers.

The postal service could scrap second class deliveries on Saturdays and reduce the service to be on alternate weekdays.

PA

Royal Mail could scrap second class deliveries[/caption]

This comes as part of proposals laid out by regulator Ofcom, who has been consulting on the future of the service since January and is expected to publish a final decision come summer.

Under the proposed plans, second class deliveries would not be made on Saturdays and would only be on alternate weekdays, but delivery times would remain unchanged at up to three working days.

The watchdog said after a consultation, it had provisionally concluded the changes would continue to meet postal users’ needs.

The regulator said the move, if carried out successfully, would help save between £250m and £425m.

This money would then be reinvested into the business to help improve it.

It was also proposed that Royal Mail should lower its targets for first class mail from 93% to 90% delivered next-day.

Meanwhile, targets for second class mail should be reduced from 98.5% to 95% delivered within three days.

This will bring them more in line with other international and European markets, it added.

Ofcom said it is putting forward these suggestions amid a drop in the quality of service at Royal Mail.

The regulator has fined Royal Mail a total of £16million in the last 18 months.

Most recently, the firm was slapped with a £10.5 fine for missing delivery targets.

At the time, Ofcom said just 74.7 per cent of first class post was delivered on time in the past year — well short of the 93 per cent target.

Natalie Black, Ofcom’s group director for networks and communications said: “The world has changed – we’re sending a third of the letters we were 20 years ago. We need to reform the postal service to protect its future and ensure it delivers for the whole of the UK.

“But we’re safeguarding what matters most to people – First Class mail six days a week at the same price throughout the UK, and a price cap on Second Class stamps.”

CHANGING HABITS

Customers are using postal services less and less, particularly when it comes to using letters.

Twenty years ago, Royal Mail was delivering 20billion letters.

That number is now 6.6billion a year, and Royal Mail expects it to be 4billion a year in the next few years.

Emma Gilthorpe, chief executive of Royal Mail, said that reform is “crucial to support a modern, sustainable, and reliable postal service for our customers, our company and our people.”

She added: “Ofcom has recognised the urgent need for change so that the future of the Universal Service can be protected for all.”

The price of first class stamps has also been increased five times over the past two years, with cost now sitting at £1.67 since last October.

This was on top of a 10p rise in April 2024.

Separately, Royal Mail’s parent company is being sold to a business controlled by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky in a deal worth £3.6billion.

However, the government will have a special share in the business which means Kretinsky will have to get approval for any changes to Royal Mail’s ownership or location of its headquarters and tax residency.