Ofcom investigates Royal Mail’s 2024/25 delivery performance failures

The UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has today launched a formal investigation into Royal Mail’s delivery performance for the 2024/25 financial year, after the postal service publicly admitted it failed to meet key regulatory targets.

Under Ofcom’s rules, Royal Mail is required to deliver at least 93% of First Class mail within one working day and 98.5% of Second Class mail within three working days, excluding the busy Christmas period. However, the company’s newly released annual performance data shows a significant shortfall against these standards.

Royal Mail reported that only 76.5% of First Class mail was delivered within the required one working day, while 92.2% of Second Class mail met the three-day delivery window. Both figures fall markedly below the regulator’s mandated benchmarks.

As a result, Ofcom has confirmed the launch of a full investigation to assess whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that Royal Mail has failed to comply with its statutory obligations.

“We will investigate whether there are reasonable grounds for believing that Royal Mail has failed to comply with its obligations in 2024/25,” Ofcom stated.

“If we determine that Royal Mail has failed to comply with its obligations, we will consider whether to impose a financial penalty.”

The probe follows a string of regulatory actions taken against Royal Mail in recent years. In December 2024, the regulator fined the postal operator £10.5 million for missing delivery targets during the 2023/24 financial year. Just a year earlier, in November 2023, the company was fined £5.6 million for similar shortcomings in 2022/23.

Ofcom’s ongoing enforcement underscores the importance of maintaining consistent postal service standards for millions of households and businesses across the UK.

Royal Mail’s continued failure to meet delivery targets raises concerns about the service’s operational resilience and its commitment to fulfilling universal service obligations — a cornerstone of the UK’s postal framework.

The outcome of the investigation could lead to further financial penalties and increased regulatory scrutiny for the company in the year ahead.