Investigation into Royal Mail’s quality of service performance in 2023/24

Opening text – 24 May 2024

Ofcom has today opened an investigation into Royal Mail’s compliance with its quality of service performance targets during 2023/24.

Our rules require Royal Mail to meet specified quality of service performance targets in the provision of universal service products. Among other targets, Royal Mail must:

• deliver 93% of first class mail within one working day of collection; and
• deliver 98.5% of second class mail within three working days of collection

Performance against these targets is measured as an average performance level on an annual basis excluding the Christmas period.

On 24 May 2024, Royal Mail announced that it did not meet the above performance targets in the 2023/24 period, as it:

• delivered 74.5% of first class mail within one working day of collection; and
• delivered 92.4% of second class mail within three working days of collection

Ofcom takes compliance with the quality of service targets very seriously. In light of Royal Mail’s reported performance, Ofcom’s investigation will examine:

• whether there are reasonable grounds for believing that Royal Mail has failed to comply with its obligations under DUSP condition 1.9.1 in respect of the 2023/24 regulatory period, taking into account the impact of any events which Ofcom considers to be exceptional and which affected Royal Mail’s performance;
• the steps Royal Mail has taken to improve its performance since the conclusion of our 2022/23 investigation and any impacts these steps have had on quality of service. In particular, we will consider what Royal Mail has done to improve its control, visibility and oversight of delivery offices; and
• where there is a failure, whether it may be appropriate to impose a financial penalty on Royal Mail for that failure, and the level of any penalty.