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Allan Leighton, the chairman of Royal Mail, will present plans for wider ownership of the postal group to the Department of Trade and Industry in the next few weeks.

The proposals, included in a five-year plan for the business, will trigger a heated political fight over the future of Royal Mail but will be presented as moves to give employees more ownership rather than a creeping privatisation.

This week Alan Johnson, the Trade and Industry Secretary, will hear concerns from the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which he once led before he became an MP eight years ago.

Mr Leighton will tell ministers that Royal Mail needs the scale of investment that can be achieved only by bringing in outside capital.

Royal Mail failed to meet its delivery targets for more than 75percent of homes and businesses in Scotland last year, making the country’s postal service the worst in the UK.

The company -which has just announced record profits of Pounds 537m and given Adam Crozier, its Scottish chief executive, a bonus of Pounds 2.2m -managed to meet first-class delivery targets in only three out of 13 postcode areas.

The worst served area was Glasgow, where only 88.8% of letters and packages reached their destination on time. Edinburgh, Inverness and Falkirk fared slightly better at just under 91percent.

Across Scotland, 90.5percent of first-class letters were delivered the next working day, compared with a minimum target of 92.5percent and national averages in England, Wales and Northern Ireland of 91.5percent, 91.9percent and 90.7percent respectively.

There is a distinct spring in the step of virtually everyone at the Royal Mail these days, a newfound corporate confidence that issues from the office of chairman Allan Leighton and beyond.

Chief executive Adam Crozier has good reason to cheer; the pounds 3m pay and incentives package he got last week was the headline figure of a long-term incentive plan that would have looked difficult to hit three years ago.

His fellow executives did rather well too, and even the post staff each got pounds 1,000, a bonus that served to counteract some of the resentment Crozier and his colleagues may have provoked.

For once Royal Mail was in the headlines for all the right reasons – an operating profit of pounds 537m, a significant reduction in the number of days lost to industrial action, and progress made towards meeting its targets on deliveries and customer satisfaction.

A controversial plan to privatise Royal Mail has won crucial backing from new Trade & Industry Secretary Alan Johnson.

The plan, which echoes the partners concept of the John Lewis stores, was revealed by Financial Mail last December. It will start early next year when Royal Mail will raise Pounds 2.5 billion to give workers a 51 per cent stake in the business and to invest.

A source close to the talks between Royal Mail and the Department of Trade & Industry said: ‘Johnson is very keen on the privatisation idea.’

Senior sources at Royal Mail say private soundings suggest the plan has the support of 85 per cent of staff. This will be crucial when the Communication Workers Union, which opposes privatisation, tries to derail the process.