ROYAL MAIL’S referral to regulators for failing to deliver letters six days a week is “vindication of why staff have lost total confidence” in the firm’s leadership, a union leader said today.

Communication Workers Union (CWU) general secretary Dave Ward welcomed the business, energy and industrial strategy committee’s decision to refer the strike-hit privatised company to Ofcom, saying the “deliberate running down of the universal service obligation (USO) has actually worsened” in recent months.

The cross-party group said the 500-year-old firm has “systematically failed to deliver” the statutory nationwide obligation and accused chief executive Simon Thompson of giving “not wholly accurate” answers to MPs in two committee hearings.