This is the best summary I could come up with:
The regulator adjusted for industrial action, plus other special factors, and still reckoned Royal Mail fell below standards by “a significant and unexplained margin”.
But, since the fining framework obliges it to weigh the harm to consumers against the need to keep the postal service financially viable, one can assume Royal Mail got off lightly because it’s broke.
One can follow the logic that says there’s not much point adding to the financial pain, but the result is that, instead of wielding a large stick, Ofcom ends up hitting Royal Mail with a twig.
But, take another few steps down the post-privatisation evolution of the postal service, and we may soon have a system that does not oblige Royal Mail to deliver letters on a Saturday.
Ofcom is looking at the idea of moving from six days a week to five for letters and will report to the government (parliament is the only body that can change the USO) in the new year.
Common sense says five days is the way to go for reasons argued here previously: letter volumes have almost halved in the past decade; research says consumers are more bothered about parcels; much of the rest of Europe has already tweaked its USO equivalents.
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