Royal Mail has managed to make its already dismal delivery performance even worse since falling under foreign ownership, with a staggering one in four first-class letters failing to arrive on time during the first months of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s stewardship.
The beleaguered postal service delivered just 75.9% of first-class mail within the required one working day between March and June, falling catastrophically short of Ofcom’s 93% target.
Second-class post fared little better, with only 89.3% arriving within three working days compared to the mandated 98.5% standard.
These figures represent the first performance data released since Kretinsky’s £3.6 billion takeover completed in April, marking Royal Mail’s transition to foreign ownership for the first time in its 508-year history.
The Convenient Timing of Continued Dismal Delivery Performance
The timing of these continued delivery failures couldn’t be more convenient for Royal Mail’s new owners, who are already pushing for dramatic cuts to the Universal Service Obligation that has protected consumers for decades.
MPs and industry critics are increasingly convinced that Royal Mail’s persistent failure to meet targets isn’t just down to operational incompetence, but represents a calculated strategy to justify gutting the six-day delivery service that millions of Britons still rely on.
Kate Osborne MP, who worked for Royal Mail for 25 years before entering Parliament, has been particularly vocal about what she sees as deliberate sabotage from within.
In a recent Facebook post, she accused Royal Mail bosses of “deliberately missing targets, cutting staff from delivery offices & missing targets to ‘prove’ their Universal Service Obligation no longer works.”
The former postal worker turned politician added that executives “continue to take millions in profit whilst reducing our postal service,” suggesting the poor performance is more about financial engineering than genuine operational challenges.
Fines That Don’t Seem to Matter
Despite being hit with record fines totalling more than £16 million over the past two years, Royal Mail appears completely unfased by Ofcom’s penalties.
The company was slapped with a £10.5 million fine in December for missing delivery targets, followed by a £5.6 million penalty in 2023, yet performance has continued to deteriorate.
For a company that’s about to be saddled with around £5 billion in debt following Kretinsky’s highly-leveraged takeover, these regulatory fines seem to be treated as just another cost of doing business.
The Perfect Setup for Service Cuts
Royal Mail’s continued failure to meet basic delivery standards provides the perfect justification for the service cuts that are already being implemented.
The company has already scrapped Saturday deliveries for second-class post and will only deliver it on alternate weekdays, changes that Ofcom meekly permitted despite widespread customer opposition.
From April next year, the regulator will lower delivery targets even further, requiring only 90% of first-class post to arrive the next working day (down from 93%) and just 95% of second-class mail within three working days (down from 98.5%).
These relaxed standards essentially reward Royal Mail’s poor performance by making the targets easier to hit, rather than demanding the company actually improve its service.
The Debt Mountain That Changes Everything
Kretinsky’s takeover has loaded Royal Mail with approximately £5 billion in debt, creating enormous pressure to slash costs wherever possible.
The Czech billionaire’s track record with the Dutch postal service PostNL, which recently admitted its business model is “no longer sustainable,” hardly inspires confidence about Royal Mail’s future under foreign ownership.
With such an enormous debt burden requiring hefty annual interest payments, every aspect of Royal Mail’s operations will be scrutinised for potential cost savings, making the Universal Service Obligation an obvious target.
Customers Pay More for Less
The irony isn’t lost that Royal Mail increased the price of a first-class stamp to £1.70 in April, just as its delivery performance was hitting new lows under foreign ownership.
Customers are now paying premium prices for a service that fails to deliver one in four letters on time, while the company simultaneously cuts Saturday deliveries and reduces service standards.
Jamie Stephenson, Royal Mail’s interim chief operating officer, offered the usual corporate platitudes about “timely letter deliveries” mattering to customers, while completely failing to explain why performance has actually gotten worse since the takeover.
Tom MacInnes from Citizens Advice summed up the customer frustration perfectly: “It’s no surprise that paying consumers are still being let down by our country’s postal service.”
The Deliberate Decline Strategy
The pattern is becoming increasingly clear to those watching Royal Mail’s systematic dismantling of service standards.
Poor performance justifies reduced targets, which justify service cuts, which justify higher prices for reduced service, which ultimately undermines public confidence in the Universal Service Obligation itself.
As Kate Osborne MP warned, executives are essentially trying to “convince people a 6 day a week postal service is unachievable” despite the fact that Royal Mail successfully delivered this service for centuries before falling into private hands.
The MP stressed that the six-day postal service remains “a vital lifeline for many in the community, NHS appointments, and print businesses” that “must be protected” from corporate asset-stripping.
A National Service Under Threat
With Royal Mail now under foreign ownership and facing unprecedented financial pressure, the Universal Service Obligation that guarantees delivery to every address in the UK for a uniform price has never been more vulnerable.
The combination of deliberate underperformance, regulatory capture, and enormous debt burdens suggests we’re witnessing the systematic dismantling of a service that has connected Britain for over five centuries.
For customers already frustrated by confusing tracking updates and unreliable delivery times, the prospect of even more degraded service under foreign ownership represents a betrayal of the public trust that was built up over generations.
Want to learn more about our declining UK courier and postal industry?
Search for more information on essential services and delivery companies in our couriers section or check our retailer guides to see which delivery companies your favourite shops are using.
