Citizens Advice responds to Royal Mail's quality of service results showing it failed to deliver post on time in the last year

Responding to Royal Mail's latest quality of service results, which show Royal Mail has not met its delivery targets for First or Second class post for the financial year 2024-25, Tom MacInnes, Director of Policy at Citizens Advice, said:

“For more than half a decade, consumers have been short-changed by our country’s postal service. Royal Mail’s quality of service targets should be there to protect customers, but the company is still getting away with hiking stamp prices while failing to deliver post on time.

“Our research has shown the damaging consequences of late post, like missed health appointments, fines, bills and vital government communications. But with no alternative provider to choose from, people are forced to grapple with poor service, year-on-year.

“With Ofcom considering relaxing the current delivery targets set for Royal Mail as part of the Universal Service Obligation review, reliability remains a huge concern. The regulator must get off the sidelines and make the company do what it should've been doing all along - giving paying customers the service they deserve.”

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Notes to editors:

  1. Under the Universal Service Obligation (USO), Ofcom’s rules require Royal Mail to deliver, in each financial year, 93% of First Class mail within one working day of collection and 98.5% of Second Class mail within three working days of collection.

  2. Citizens Advice is made up of the national charity Citizens Advice; the network of independent local Citizens Advice charities across England and Wales; the Citizens Advice consumer service; and the Witness Service.

  3. Our network of charities offers impartial advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. 

  4. Citizens Advice helped 2.68 million people face to face, over the phone, by email and webchat in 2023-24. And we had 51.7 million visits to our website. For full service statistics see our monthly publication Advice trends.

  5. Citizens Advice service staff are supported by more than 19,000 trained volunteers, working at over 1,900 service outlets across England and Wales.

  6. Citizens Advice is the statutory consumer advocate for energy and postal markets. We provide supplier performance information to consumers and policy analysis to decision makers. 

  7. You can get consumer advice from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 or 0808 223 1144 for Welsh language speakers.