The owner of Royal Mail has announced a delay in the wider implementation of its controversial delivery reforms, which include discontinuing second-class letter services on Saturdays.
International Distribution Services (IDS) confirmed that these changes will not be rolled out across the UK until early next year.
IDS, acquired last year by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s EP Group for £3.6 billion, has been trialling the overhaul in 35 delivery offices.
The pilot scheme involves scrapping Saturday second-class deliveries and transitioning to an every-other-weekday service.
Regulator Ofcom had previously given the green light for these reforms to commence from the end of July.
However, in its half-year results published on Wednesday, the group stated that the broader rollout of the new regime would be postponed until early 2026.
IDS chief executive Martin Seidenberg had previously described the reforms as a “massive task” and emphasised the need to “take the time to get this right” rather than rushing the expansion across its national network.
The company also noted it was too early to specify when the changes would be completed or which of its 1,200 delivery offices would be next to undergo the overhaul.
Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21 million last month for missing its annual first and second-class mail delivery targets, leading to millions of letters arriving late across the UK.
It marked the third-largest fine ever imposed by the communications watchdog.
Royal Mail delivered 77 per cent of first-class mail and 92.5 per cent of second-class mail on time during the 2024/25 financial year, Ofcom found.
As part of the reforms to the universal postal service, Ofcom has lowered targets for first-class post to be delivered the next day from 93 per cent to 90 per cent and second-class to be delivered within three days from 98.5 per cent to 95 per cent.
But Ofcom has added a new “enforceable” backstop delivery target, so that 99 per cent of mail has to be delivered no more than two days late.
The latest interim figures showed revenues at Royal Mail lifted 1.5 per cent to £3.98 billion in the six months to September 28, as a 3.2 per cent rise for parcels business offset a 0.4 per cent fall for letters.
Total revenues across the wider IDS group rose 1.6 per cent to £6.45 billion, with the GLS international parcel business seeing revenues increase by 1.9 per cent to £2.48 billion.
Royal Mail said the performance was set against a “backdrop of rising costs and macroeconomic pressures which are expected to continue into 2026”.
“These include national insurance contribution increases of around £120 million, increased wage costs in the UK business and complexities in the global trading environment,” the group said.
It also said it had hired 20,000 temporary workers ahead of the busy Christmas season, with 7,000 new vans and the opening of four seasonal parcel sorting centres with an additional 118,000 square metres of extra space, which it said was equivalent to 16.5 football pitches.
Mr Seidenberg said: “We never underestimate the important role we play at Christmas and we are hiring more people, opening temporary parcel sorting centres and putting more vans on the road to deliver for our customers again this year.”
