The Royal Mail has confirmed new plans that could rip apart the number of days are delivered on to just three every week – it is part of a cost-cutting plan put forward by Ofcom.

The industry regulator says people are not getting a “reliable service” and last year the Royal Mail was fined £5.6mn for failing to reach delivery targets.

In a statement, Ofcom has set out two options for Royal Mail to save millions of pounds and improve the current service.

The first option is scrapping the six-day format, to see letters delivered five, or even down to three days a week. The second option includes having letters delivered three days later for first and second-class mail. This could save Royal Mail between £100 million and £650 million, according to the regulator. 

Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s Chief Executive, said: “Postal workers are part of the fabric of our society and are critical to communities up and down the country. But we’re sending half as many letters as we did in 2011, and receiving many more parcels. The universal service hasn’t changed since then, it’s getting out of date and will become unsustainable if we don’t take action.”

Ofcom said it wanted a “national debate” on the future of the UK’s postal service, given that the number of letters being posted has halved since 2011.

The company, which was privatised between 2013 and 2015, is legally obliged to deliver a universal service, which means it currently has to deliver letters six days per week, Monday to Saturday.

The government said earlier this week that it would not support Royal Mail scrapping postal deliveries on Saturdays, with the prime minister’s spokesman arguing they were “important for businesses and particularly publishers”.

Reforming the postal service by cutting delivery days would require the government and parliament to change the current legislation.

Martin Seidenberg, Royal Mail’s group chief executive, suggested the UK was “being left behind” in having not yet reformed its postal service, adding that the company had been “calling on government and Ofcom to tackle this issue for four years”.

Research by Ofcom has suggested fewer delivery days could still meet most people’s needs as nine in 10 people (88%) say reliability is important for letter deliveries, compared to 58% for delivery on Saturdays (down from 63% in 2020).

However, Royal Mail scrapping Saturday post deliveries would be “another step towards second-class citizenship” for older people, a campaigner has warned. The director of the Silver Voices campaign group for over 60s, warned the move would hit older people hardest.

In Europe, similar changes to the postal system have also been made in several countries.  Among those to reduce the number of delivery days or extended times for letters include Sweden in 2018, Belgium twice since 2020, and Norway and Denmark twice each since 2016.