Citizens Advice responds to Ofcom's review of the Universal Service Obligation

Following Ofcom's review of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) announcement this morning, which proposes to cut Royal Mail's Second Class deliveries to alternate weekdays, Tom MacInnes, Director of Policy at Citizens Advice, said:

“Year after year, Royal Mail's failure to meet its targets with minimal consequences demonstrates that the current Universal Service Obligation (USO) is not effectively protecting consumers.

“Reforms to the USO come at a critical moment for the future of our postal service and we’re pleased that Ofcom has taken an interest in the issues, like reliability and affordability, that matter most to consumers.

“But cutting services won’t automatically make letter deliveries more reliable or improve standards. And neither will reducing delivery targets for Royal Mail when it has repeatedly failed to hit them for so many years. “While Ofcom has acknowledged some of Royal Mail’s failings by imposing fines, we want to see the regulator clamp down much more consistently on breaches of any new rules in the future. Only then will we have a USO that puts consumers at its heart - not just Royal Mail’s bottom line.”

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Notes to editors:

  1. Citizens Advice is made up of the national charity Citizens Advice; the network of independent local Citizens Advice charities across England and Wales; the Citizens Advice consumer service; and the Witness Service.

  2. Our network of charities offers impartial advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. 

  3. Citizens Advice helped 2.68 million people face to face, over the phone, by email and webchat in 2023-24. And we had 51.7 million visits to our website. For full service statistics see our monthly publication Advice trends.

  4. Citizens Advice service staff are supported by more than 19,000 trained volunteers, working at over 1,900 service outlets across England and Wales.

  5. Citizens Advice is the statutory consumer advocate for energy and postal markets. We provide supplier performance information to consumers and policy analysis to decision makers. 

  6. You can get consumer advice from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 or 0808 223 1144 for Welsh language speakers.