Citizens Advice responds to Royal Mail's latest quality of service results

Royal Mail's latest quality of service results for Q3 2024-2025 show it has not met its delivery targets for First or Second class post between October and December 2024.

Responding to latest results, Tom MacInnes, Director of Policy at Citizens Advice, said:

“Year-on-year, consumers are being let down by our country’s postal service. Royal Mail’s quality of service targets should be there to protect customers, but they’re failing to do so, while stamp prices keep rising.

“Our research shows the serious consequences of late post, with people missing health appointments, bills, fines and benefit decisions. Royal Mail hasn’t met a quality of service target since 2020, and its paying customers deserve better.

“Cutting services or changing targets won’t automatically improve standards. With Ofcom consulting on the postal Universal Service Obligation (USO), we urge the regulator to do more to hold Royal Mail to account in meeting any future targets, and put consumer needs at the heart of its operations.”

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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.