Royal Mail is being investigated by Ofcom after its poor service throughout the year left millions of Brits without post.
The postal service was targeted to deliver 93% of its first-class mail within the first day of collection, but Royal Mail revealed on Monday that it had only delivered 73.7% on time.
“Royal Mail's poor service is now business as usual.
"Quarter-on-quarter, year-on-year, it’s marred by delays and hasn’t hit its first-class delivery target in four out of the last five years,” said Matthew Upton at Citizens Advice.
Millions of people have missed out on important deliveries like health appointment letters over the last three years, Upton added.
International Distributions Services PLC (LSE:IDS), which owns Royal Mail, is also required to complete 99.9% of routes every day delivery is required, but in the last year, the group only achieved 89.35%.
Ofgcom has given the postal company a chance to explain itself before it imposes any fines, with the firm likely to point to strikes and cite a cyber-attack as reasons for the delays.
The regulator made it clear that Royal Mail could not use the impact of Covid-19 as an excuse for not meeting targets.
“Enough is enough. It’s time for the regulator to act, not just on the poor results from this quarter, but to address years of failings,” Upton concluded.
Citizen Advice in its own research found that 12.3mln people had experienced postal delays in the last month, with over half of those Brits suffering negative consequences due to the wait.
Royal Mail apologised for the poor performance, adding: “With the plans we have in place to drive service levels and reduce absence, we hope and expect to see further progress in the coming months.”
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