Royal Mail update

Royal mail has announced further changes to their letter delivery service to take affect from 28^th July 2025.

We have attached a link to the Royal Mail website below but in summary, Ofcom’s reforms to the Universal Service include changes to how your letters will be delivered. 

What’s changing:

• 2nd Class and other non-1st Class letters will be delivered every other weekday (Monday to Friday). With an aim to deliver 2nd Class mail within three weekdays.
• Standard bulk business letters (used for items like bills and statements) will move to a three-day delivery aim, aligned with 2nd Class.

For more information, please look at the Royal Mail website.

Letter deliveries are changing to deliver a better all-round service | Royal Mail Group Ltd

At David Howard, we understand that this may impact on our clients and delay the payroll documents being received in the post.

We want to encourage clients to consider moving to the online portal, as payroll documents will be available as soon as the payroll has been run, and you will not be reliant on the postal service.

However, for clients that still wish to remain using the postage option, we ask that you bear in mind the following:

• Payroll information must be sent to the payroll team no later than the monthly deadline, and should you wish to receive your payroll via post, please consider sending in your payroll even earlier.
• Clients must allow 7 working days for the post to arrive (in addition to the three days turn around to process the payroll) this is 10 working days from when you send in your payroll.
• Payrolls received after the deadline are unlikely to arrive back to you by pay day.
• Payroll information will not be provided via email or telephone due to GDPR regulations
• Payroll information will be available on the online portals as soon as it is processed by the payroll team
• Additional charges will continue to apply for postage, and this will be increasing in January 2026 in line with the Royal Mail increase.

Unfortunately, the changes to the postal service delivery times and charges are outside our control, so we would strongly recommend that if post is your preferred method, that payrolls are sent in to the payroll team several days before the standard deadline date, to take into account the changes to the delivery service.

Should you wish to move onto the free online portal please contact the payroll team and we will assist you.