Royal Mail doubles down on scrapping weekend deliveries after missing postal targets

Based on its latest financial results, Royal Mail confirmed only 75.7 per cent of letters reached recipients the following working day during the 12 months ending in March.

This figure sits far below the regulator's 90% benchmark and represents a slight deterioration from the previous year's 76.3 per cent performance.

The communications watchdog handed Royal Mail a £21million penalty last October for its persistent failure to meet annual targets, marking the third-largest fine Ofcom has ever issued.

At the time, the regulator described the late arrival of millions of important letters as "unacceptable". Second-class mail performance proved equally disappointing, with only 90.2 per cent of letters delivered within the required three working days.

This marks a decline from 92.2 per cent the previous year and falls short of Ofcom's 95 per cent standard. The postal company attributed its poor results to challenging winter conditions, citing the disruption caused by storms Goretti and Chandra.

Royal Mail also pointed to elevated levels of workforce absence due to a flu outbreak as a contributing factor.

Despite these ongoing failures, Royal Mail is proceeding with a major overhaul of its delivery operations that will eliminate Saturday second-class post entirely.

The restructuring will also see second-class letters delivered on alternate weekdays only rather than daily.

As part of a £500million investment programme spanning five years, the company has committed to meeting revised delivery standards by May next year.

Royal Mail anticipates that first-class next-day delivery will climb to approximately 85 per cent within nine months of implementing the changes, before achieving Ofcom's 90 per cent threshold within twelve months.

The operator has similarly pledged to reach 93 per cent for second-class deliveries within nine months, with the full 95 per cent target met by next May.

Jamie Stephenson, Royal Mail's chief operating officer, said: "We're putting significant investment into improving reliability and reaching these new delivery targets, but delivering lasting change across a network of this scale takes time."

He added: "We have a plan to deploy the new delivery model to all delivery offices across the country by the Christmas peak period and have set clear targets for each quarter as changes are introduced across the network."

Mr Stephenson noted that early performance data this year indicates the company is progressing according to plan.