Royal Mail delays major postal overhaul ahead of Christmas

Royal Mail is pausing the final stage of its second-class delivery shake-up until the new year, following growing demands for the provider to raise its service standards.

Following an agreement with the postal workers’ union, the business will defer extending the changes to its last 107 delivery hubs until January, enabling staff to concentrate on the busy Christmas period.

Under the sweeping restructuring, second-class letters will move to alternate weekday deliveries, with Saturday services removed entirely. Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distribution Services, was acquired last year by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.

The group had initially targeted a full implementation across all 1,200 of its delivery sites before Christmas, though earlier friction with trade union representatives had already slowed progress.

To date, the updated framework has been introduced in nearly 1,100 locations, with a further 15 scheduled for inclusion by 2 November. Implementation across the final 107 UK offices will now be held back until 11 January.

It comes after prime minister Andy Burnham called on Royal Mail last week to address its operational shortcomings, warning that the government might consider "further measures" following repeated failures to meet delivery targets.

The Communication Workers Union also earlier this month called for an emergency summit on Royal Mail’s future, claiming the organisation was “on the brink of collapse”.

Royal Mail insisted its reforms were starting to bear fruit, but said the latest delay was a “pragmatic approach” to allow it to “maintain the momentum behind one of the biggest operational changes in its history, while keeping focus firmly on delivering a successful Christmas for customers”.

Alistair Cochrane, chief executive of Royal Mail, said: “We have now deployed our new delivery model in around 90 per cent of delivery offices and are starting to see the benefits for customers.

“First-class quality of service has improved by 9 per cent, and offices operating under the new delivery model are delivering to around 95 per cent of addresses each day on average, compared with 88 per cent before rollout began.

“There is still more to do, but the progress we are seeing gives us confidence that the new delivery model will continue to ensure more reliable, efficient and sustainable deliveries for our customers.”

Royal Mail revealed in August it missed delivery targets once again.

It delivered 85 per cent of first-class deliveries the next day and 91.4 per cent of second-class mail within three working days during the first quarter of the year.

Under recently lowered targets set by Ofcom, 90 per cent of first-class mail should be delivered the next day and 95 per cent of second-class mail should be delivered within three days.

Royal Mail insisted it had seen a marked improvement from a year earlier, when first-quarter figures showed just 76 per cent of first-class and 89.3 per cent of second-class post arrived on time.

In Prime Minister’s Questions last week, Mr Burnham said Royal Mail’s service has been “unacceptable for far too long”.

He said: “They need to bring forward a plan to restore service standards to the level they need to be at. They need to do it quickly or we will consider further measures.”

Royal Mail published an improvement plan in the spring which included a commitment to invest £500 million in quality of service over five years.

Earlier this month, Royal Mail said it would cut 2,500 head office jobs and other supporting roles, about 2 per cent of its overall workforce.

Frontline postal workers are not part of the proposed restructure, the group said.

Royal Mail is hiring 22,000 temporary workers over the Christmas period to help transport, sort and deliver the additional mail expected over the festive period.