Watchdog raps Royal Mail

Royal Mail came under fire from the postal watchdog yesterday, after it emerged that almost two-thirds of its services were performing less well than at the end of last year – including first class mail delivery.

The postal operator insisted that between April and June, 91.3 per cent of first-class letters had arrived the day after posting, against 86.5 per cent for the same period last year. Second-class mail deliveries, meanwhile, had beaten delivery targets.

But Postwatch said the figures showed that in a year at least 390m first-class letters would not arrive the next day. The watchdog added that Royal Mail’s results for 10 out of 16 postal services were worse now than at the end of last year.

However, Royal Mail said it was pleased it was “consistently delivering more than 90 per cent of first-class letters next day, which wasn’t the case a year ago”. It said: “We accept that we need to do a lot more to improve services for our customers, in particular some business services.” Sarah Laitner