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Royal Mail demands end of Saturday deliveries as it crashes to a £320m loss
By Calum Muirhead
Updated: 22:01 16 Nov 2023

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Royal Mail has piled pressure on the Government to scrap Saturday letter deliveries as it crashed to a loss of nearly £320million.

With the 507-year-old firm facing a crucial Christmas after last year’s festive season was thrown into chaos by strikes, it warned that change was ‘urgently’ needed so it could adapt to people’s delivery habits.

To avoid a repeat of last year, when mail piled up in sorting offices, it is offering £500 bonuses if staff hit delivery targets.

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It has also drawn up plans to hire 16,000 seasonal workers and open five temporary sorting offices to avoid backlogs.

‘Quality is key for customer satisfaction and sustainable growth, so we are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas for our customers,’ said Martin Seidenberg, the boss of Royal Mail’s parent company International Distributions Services (IDS).

It is under particular pressure to deliver after first-class stamps hit a record £1.25 last month, or £10 for a book of eight.

Seidenberg, who took charge in August, reiterated that Saturday letter deliveries had to be axed as the volume of letters posted continued to dwindle.

‘It’s not sustainable to maintain a network built for 20bn letters when we’re only delivering seven billion. Regulation has to move with the times,’ he said.

The comments came as IDS revealed losses at Royal Mail jumped to £319million in the six months to September 24 – up from £219million in the same period last year – as sales fell 2.9 per cent to £3.5billion.

The losses at Royal Mail wiped out profits of £150million at its international sister business GLS, leaving IDS with an overall loss of £169million – almost treble the £57million loss in the same period last year.

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Seidenberg called on the Government and the regulator Ofcom to help it adapt to the declining use of letters alongside a boom in parcel deliveries and the rise of rival delivery groups such as Amazon and Evri.


‘We need to move on,’ Seidenberg said, adding that other countries had already reformed their postal services, and the UK was ‘being left behind’.

His comments came as Royal Mail continues to push for an overhaul of its Universal Service Obligation, the law that requires it to deliver letters six days a week, arguing that changing customer habits meant five days would be sufficient.

There have been growing complaints that the firm is falling behind on delivery targets, particularly for first-class post.

Ofcom fined it £5.6million this week for failing to meet its targets, which require Royal Mail to deliver 93 per cent of first-class mail within one working day and 98.5 per cent of second-class mail within three working days.

Last year, it delivered 73.7 per cent of first-class mail and 90.7 per cent of second-class mail on time.

The postal service is required to complete 99.9 per cent of delivery routes for each day on which a delivery is required, but last year it only managed 89.35 per cent.

Royal Mail also faces a £600million legal claim from rival Whistl which says it abused its dominant market position to squeeze out competitors.

It comes as the Post Office ended its 360-year exclusive partnership with Royal Mail this month by agreeing to act for rival carriers DPD and Evri.

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[postslippete]

Seidenberg, who took charge in August, reiterated that Saturday letter deliveries had to be axed as the volume of letters posted continued to dwindle.

‘It’s not sustainable to maintain a network built for 20bn letters when we’re only delivering seven billion. Regulation has to move with the times,’ he said.



So how is that there are less people using the service but they are still failing the targets for the mail??

[scotchy1962]

I think RM are just going to keep posting losses until the government allows them to drop the USO.
Makes sense to do it that way and then when they get their way to suddenly declare a huge profit and feel justified.
Although i do find it strange that they intend to pay a dividend to shareholders??

[LouBarlow]

Maybe RM are continuing to post losses because RM are continuing to post losses. There doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theory behind it. Running a business is becoming increasingly expensive in this country and it was already posted elsewhere today that people are spending less money. It isn’t difficult to conflate these two things.

[postslippete]

Maybe the losses are due to Industrial Action circa 1971 or paying off failed CEOs.


On a serious note slashing 10,000 jobs is estimated to save the business around £150 million a year; so I'm sure they will be reporting profits soon.

[rubberbond]

Yes and look where that’s got us.

[TopperGas]

Maybe RM are continuing to post losses because RM are continuing to post losses. There doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theory behind it. Running a business is becoming increasingly expensive in this country and it was already posted elsewhere today that people are spending less money. It isn’t difficult to conflate these two things.

If people are spending less it doesn't seem to be reflected in the amount of parcels they are sending in my DO, all the changes to sick pay etc were apparently going to make the company profitable now it seems only cutting the Saturday deliveries, and I assume the jobs which go with it, will make it profitable.

[qwerty2]

Maybe the losses are due to Industrial Action circa 1971 or paying off failed CEOs.


On a serious note slashing 10,000 jobs is estimated to save the business around £150 million a year; so I'm sure they will be reporting profits soon.

The CWU said in august that 16000 had left in the last year so it must be close to 20000 now

[Mr Rush]

The CWU said in august that 16000 had left in the last year so it must be close to 20000 now

At this rate, by the end of the decade there'll only be 10,000 union members.

So, with 85,000 local post men and women on hand to represent your business with pride at the doorstep, whether you’re looking for sustainability, speed, great value – or all three – when deliveries matter, it has to be Royal Mail.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said 33,000 temporary workers had been brought in to support its 115,000 permanent postmen and women, and they were helping to sort parcels, cards and letters.

In his latest role, he will be responsible for the collection, sorting and delivery of more than 80m letters daily by almost 170,000 postmen and women.

[twoloops]

Our office is ahead of the game, only the old timers & the stupid took mail out yesterday, everyone else two in a van & clear the tracked, finished bang on time

[comeracing]

Saturday no delivery of mail is only a matter of time, RM want it the cwu agree and want it , RM now have the figures to put forward to the government, on how letters have declined, will be 5 day a week mon - fri parcels and letters and parcels only sat and sun by spring 2024

[postslippete]

Saturday no delivery of mail is only a matter of time, RM want it the cwu agree and want it , RM now have the figures to put forward to the government, on how letters have declined, will be 5 day a week mon - fri parcels and letters and parcels only sat and sun by spring 2024

I'm sure Dave Ward said that they would support a 5 day USO if the company would ensure a better Quality of Service - but how can they if they are currently failing to meet a 6 day USO? It would mean that Royal Mail would either have to recruit more permanent staff or put duties back in when all they have been doing in the last few years is continually 'rightsize' the business.

[Chelseablue]

Our office is ahead of the game, only the old timers & the stupid took mail out yesterday, everyone else two in a van & clear the tracked, finished bang on time

Only the stupid,,, kn ob