Overview
- Royal Mail, which set out the plan Tuesday, will begin a phased national rollout in May pending a CWU member ballot.
- Second‑class letters will arrive every other weekday with Saturday second‑class rounds ending, while first‑class and parcels keep their current schedules.
- The company sets milestones to lift first‑class next‑day delivery to about 85% within nine months and to 90% within a year, and to raise second‑class three‑day delivery to 93% in nine months and 95% by May next year.
- The rollout extends reforms from a 35‑office pilot to 240 more delivery offices first and then to the full network by December.
- Staffing changes aim to add around 3,000 full‑time equivalent delivery roles by increasing hours for about 6,000 part‑time workers, with extra focus on short‑staffed cities such as Oxford, Cambridge and London, as Ofcom presses for faster improvement under its lower targets and new 99% backstop after last October’s £21m fine.