We are concerned that Ofcom’s regulatory approach has for years now failed to bring about the required step change in Royal Mail’s performance. Three consecutive years of fines and a demand for an “urgent” improvement plan were not enough, as both short-term improvements and long-term USO reform became ensnared in an industrial dispute between Royal Mail and the CWU. It appears to have taken the Secretary of State’s direct 9 intervention to resolve this crisis. We are grateful to the Secretary of State for his action, but he is not the statutory regulator of the postal service. (Conclusion, Paragraph 19)