Plans to overhaul Royal Mail will leave us with a second-class service

It’s time for a “national debate” over the future of the postal service, according to watchdog Ofcom – but both main options for reform could have the nation’s posties straining under the weight of angry correspondence.

The first would involve making changes to existing products (first class, second class and business mail) so that most letters would be delivered through a service taking up to three days or more. A next-day service would still be available for “urgent” letters. But this would come at a price. Probably a fancy one.

The second would be to reduce the number of letter delivery days from six to five. Or even three. This one would be quite a bit more complicated to achieve because it would require a change to the universal service obligation and that can only be done via primary legislation.

Postal service users – which despite the relentless rise of industry-disrupting electronic communication is still most of us – could be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at the very least. Given the way the service has been going, are we not to all intents and purposes already there in some cases? How often do you see your postie?

The erratic nature of deliveries, as things stand, can cause real problems. It is, for example, frighteningly easy to trip a camera when driving around London, with its ever changing road layout, frequent temporary restrictions, and its array of low traffic traffic neighbourhoods. It is cheaper to pay up quick but what if the letter informing you of your transgression gets delayed? This once happened to your correspondent. It was deeply frustrating, not to mention expensive.

Under Ofcom’s current rules, the Royal Mail is supposed to deliver 93 per cent of First Class post within a single working day and 98.5 per cent of Second Class letters within three. However, in 2022/23 the company managed that with only 73.7 per cent of First Class and 90.7 per cent of Second Class mail.

The watchdog duly levied a £5.6m fine. But its report sings from a different hymn sheet, warning that the failure to cut the service a break may lead to it becoming unsustainable. The volume of letters delivered has halved since 2011 and the decline will likely continue for the forseeable future.

The regulator’s suggestions for addressing this would, needless to say, yield quite the windfall for the Royal Mail, which despite boasting one of the nation’s more recognisable brands decided to change the name of its parent company to (ugh) International Distributions Services a while back.

Ofcom reckons the company would reap a net cost saving of £100m-£200m if letter deliveries were reduced to five days (drawing the curtain on Saturday deliveries) and as much as £400m-£650m if there were a reduction to deliveries on three days.

The other option would be to scrap next day delivery in most circumstances. If Royal Mail was able to deliver a large majority of letters within three days rather than in one, it could achieve net cost savings of £150m-£650m.

Those are impressive numbers although how much either move would generate in practice – given current poor performance – is a matter of debate.

Let’s cut to the chase: it is certainly true that the business of the Royal Mail or International Distributions Services (is that even grammatically correct?) has been challenged by tech. Change is probably inevitable. If it is coming, however, Ofcom needs to ensure that there are safeguards attached. This isn’t just a matter of people getting stiffed through unjust fines. Most people consider the post will remain important for certain types of communication for some time to come.

The problem Ofcom faces with its problems is that it is hard to feel a great deal of sympathy for the company given its performance to date. Then there is the fact that the government appears to have spiked its guns on reducing the number of delivery days by stating a commitment to the six day service. Kevin Hollinrake, the postal services minister, told the BBC the Royal Mail needed to “up their game”. Remind me, how does that proverb about people in glass houses not throwing stones go?

Of course, things might change after the election. So perhaps we’ll see some firm proposals by second post? Sometime next year? Hopefully with a few more Ofcom strings attached.