MPs say Royal Mail still far from fixed one month before deadline

A senior group of MPs has warned that Royal Mail remains far from fixed, with one month left before a deadline it set for the company to improve services. In May, the business committee of MPs gave Royal Mail six months to deliver what it called meaningful change and made several recommendations. One was a stronger remit for the regulator Ofcom. With the deadline now close, the committee says the service is far from fixed and that the government and Ofcom have given no indication of regulatory changes.

The warning comes ahead of the busy Christmas period and after reports that hundreds of postal workers are leaving every week. The Communication Workers Union claims about 400 workers, mainly on part-time contracts, are leaving each week. Royal Mail called those claims misleading. The company said service performance is the best it has been for many years. It said it is recruiting an extra 22,000 staff for Christmas and has already received more than 100,000 applications for those posts.

Ofcom has fined Royal Mail for missing recent targets. The chair of the business committee, Liam Byrne, will question the business secretary about the issue in the Commons. He said he expects the secretary of state to be clear with parliament that he has a plan to make sure Royal Mail continues to improve and that Christmas deliveries meet expectations. Byrne said he would rather not let the situation drag on until close to Christmas and then find that no one has a plan. He said: 'I want to force that issue now.'

In a statement, Ofcom said it shares the deep frustrations with Royal Mail's poor delivery performance, which it said has not been good enough. It said it is investigating the company's failure to meet its latest targets and has fined it more than £37 million in recent years.

Royal Mail says quality of service is improving as it rolls out its new universal service delivery model. It said it remains on track with the improvement plan set out in April. The man in charge of that plan said at the time that people should see improvements in nine months and that the company would hit new relaxed delivery targets within 12 months. The pressure on the company has not gone away while it makes the changes it says will improve things.