Ofcom says it is still deciding whether Royal Mail's price rise was fair. Its own case file shows that question was never answered, Royal Mail withdrew the rise and filed a replacement for December instead.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. Ofcom's live news page says it accepted a dispute over a Royal Mail wholesale price rise and "will be determining whether" it was fair, with the increase "suspended pending our decision" [1]. Ofcom's own separate case file shows that determination never came: the case closed within a month after Royal Mail withdrew the rise, "without reaching any view" on whether it was fair [2]. Royal Mail's own wholesale portal shows a replacement rise already filed for December, never put to the same test [3]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
Royal Mail has to offer other postal companies access to its delivery network for bulk mail, the letters sent by banks, government departments and the NHS in volume, and the terms have to be "fair and reasonable" under conditions set by Ofcom [2]. On 23 July 2026, Royal Mail gave those access customers notice of a price rise, Contract Change Notice 129, due to take effect on 5 October 2026 [4]. The Mail Competition Forum, representing 17 access customers, referred the increase to Ofcom rather than accept it [2]. This piece tests what Ofcom's own published account of that referral still says today against what Ofcom's own record shows actually happened to it.
What Ofcom's news page still says
Ofcom's news item, published 4 September 2026 and unchanged since, announces that it "has agreed to resolve a dispute between Royal Mail and its wholesale customers" and will determine "whether Royal Mail's wholesale price rises constitute fair and reasonable terms, conditions and charges in accordance with our rules" [1]. Under "Next steps", it says: "In accordance with our guidelines, we intend to issue our decision on this dispute within four months. Under the terms of Royal Mail's contracts, its wholesale price increases will be suspended pending our decision" [1]. Read today, that page describes a live regulatory process still working towards a verdict, with the disputed prices on hold in the meantime.
What Ofcom's own case file shows happened
Ofcom runs a separate case-tracking page for the same referral, case reference CW/01356/09/26. It carries a status field, "Closed", and two dates: "Case opened 4 September 2026" and "Case closed 5 October 2026" [2]. Its closing text, added 5 October, is plain about why: "Royal Mail has now withdrawn CCN 129, and this dispute resolution process has been closed accordingly" [2]. The scope Ofcom had set itself was narrow and specific: "Whether the price changes notified by Royal Mail in CCN 129 constitute fair and reasonable terms, conditions and charges in accordance with access conditions USPA 3.1A and 3.1B" [2]. That question was never reached. The same page states, as it did from the start, that accepting a dispute "does not in any way indicate that Ofcom has reached any view as to whether any party has or has not breached any regulatory obligations" [2]. No view was reached at the start, and none was reached at the end either. The news page announcing the dispute carries no equivalent update, correction or closing note of its own.
The replacement nobody has tested
Royal Mail's own wholesale portal lists its contract change history in full. It records "Contract Change Notice 129 coming into effect 5 October 2026 (withdrawn 25.9.26)" immediately next to "Contract Change Notice 130 coming into effect 7 December 2026" [3]. The cover letter for CCN 130 is dated 25 September 2026, the same day the withdrawal is logged, and gives customers notice of new Access Charges from 7 December, signed by Royal Mail Wholesale's managing director for letters [5]. The rise is real and it is not small. Comparing Royal Mail's own published tariff files, prices from 7 April 2026 against prices from 7 December 2026, the national rate for an Access Business Mail Mailmark Economy letter rises from 55.327p to 67.174p, up 21.4 per cent, and the Standard Business Mail Mailmark letter rises from 64.591p to 74.563p, up 15.4 per cent [6] [7]. Neither Ofcom's website nor Royal Mail's own news pages show any fresh dispute referred against CCN 130. Trade press covering the closure reports the same sequence, a withdrawal followed immediately by a replacement notice, without describing any renewed challenge to it either [8]. The one mechanism that existed to test whether a Royal Mail wholesale price rise is fair and reasonable ran its course on a notice that no longer exists, and has not been applied to the one that replaced it.
Credit where due
Royal Mail did not simply let the disputed notice take effect while the challenge was pending; it withdrew CCN 129 rather than pressing ahead with prices under live referral, and it gave access customers roughly ten weeks' notice of the December replacement, in line with the ten weeks it gave for the original October rise [4] [5]. Ofcom's case-tracking page is itself a good model of the transparency this piece is asking for: dated, status-tagged, and explicit that accepting a dispute is not a finding against anyone [2]. The fault is not that Ofcom closed the case; a withdrawn notice genuinely has nothing left to decide. It is that the public-facing announcement of the dispute, the page most likely to be read by anyone searching for what happened, was never brought up to date to say so.
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Ofcom's news page, published 4 September 2026, unchanged since: "we intend to issue our decision on this dispute within four months", with prices "suspended pending our decision" [1] | Ofcom's own case file: case closed 5 October 2026, "without reaching any view", after Royal Mail withdrew the disputed notice [2] | The live news page describes a process that ended five weeks after it was published, and has not been corrected |
| Ofcom's case scope: determine "whether the price changes notified by Royal Mail in CCN 129 constitute fair and reasonable terms" [2] | Royal Mail withdrew CCN 129 the same day it filed CCN 130, a replacement rise of 15 to 21 per cent on core products, effective 7 December 2026, confirmed directly against Royal Mail's own tariff files [3] [6] [7] | The only "fair and reasonable" test anyone attempted was never applied to the rise that will actually be charged |
Verdict
Four stars, two documented mistakes. Ofcom did what the Postal Services Act lets it do: accept a referral, set a scope, and close the case when the thing in dispute stopped existing. What it has not done is update the page most people will actually find, which still tells readers today that a decision is coming within four months of 4 September, on prices that are suspended. Royal Mail, for its part, withdrew a challenged rise rather than defend it, then filed a very similar kind of increase again two months later under a fresh notice number, one nobody has referred to Ofcom. A dispute mechanism that only ever rules on notices that get withdrawn before it reports is not obviously protecting the access customers it exists for.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: Ofcom's live news page (published 4 September 2026) still presents the Royal Mail wholesale price dispute as an open process working towards a decision within four months, when Ofcom's own case-tracking page confirms it closed on 5 October 2026 without any ruling on fairness, after Royal Mail withdrew the disputed notice; and the "fair and reasonable" test that was the entire purpose of the dispute has never been applied to Royal Mail's replacement price rise, Contract Change Notice 130, which takes effect 7 December 2026 at an increase of 15 to 21 per cent on the core products checked against Royal Mail's own published tariffs. This piece makes no finding against any named individual; Richard Travers is named only as the signatory of a routine commercial contract notice. Accepting and closing a dispute under the Postal Services Act is ordinary regulatory process, not a finding of wrongdoing by Ofcom or Royal Mail. All sources below were fetched directly on 14 October 2026 and returned HTTP 200; the two Royal Mail tariff spreadsheets were read in full for the prices compared.
Sources
- Ofcom accepts dispute regarding Royal Mail's wholesale price rises, Ofcom, published 4 September 2026
- Dispute between Mail Competition Forum and Royal Mail concerning notified price rises for access services, Ofcom, published 4 September 2026, last updated 5 October 2026
- Contract Changes, Royal Mail Wholesale, checked 14 October 2026
- Access Letters Contract Change Notice 129 (PDF), Royal Mail Wholesale, dated 23 July 2026
- Access Letters Contract Change Notice 130 (PDF), Royal Mail Wholesale, dated 25 September 2026
- Royal Mail Wholesale letter prices from 7 April 2026 (XLSX), Royal Mail Wholesale
- Royal Mail Wholesale letter prices from 7 December 2026 (XLSX), Royal Mail Wholesale
- Royal Mail drops price changes after Ofcom dispute, Home of Direct Commerce, published 12 October 2026