Royal Mail: Business Standards 2026 – Revised Version
Branches are advised that Royal Mail is today publishing its revised Business Standards for 2026 which are attached.
Clearly, the Business Standards and especially the use of them for Conduct purposes by Royal Mail have been controversial. Indeed, our Branches & Representatives will be fully aware that during the 2022 dispute, the Royal Mail Business Standards were weaponised against our members and reps. This position culminated in the Lord Falconer Review, which exposed the actions of Royal Mail and its use of the Business Standards as a catch-all for charges of gross misconduct.
In the last year, we have been engaging with Royal Mail with the aim of ensuring the Business Standards are less focused on Conduct measures and considerably less threat-centred. To this end, we have been successful in convincing Royal Mail to remove numerous references to “Conduct” from the Business Standards, which we believed were unnecessary.
It should be noted that the Royal Mail Business Standards are not agreed by the union. That said, there has been genuine consultation with us, and we have had the opportunity to make suggestions to improve it and therefore influence the final version. Hence, there is considerably less reliance on the word “conduct”. However, this doesn’t mean it has been removed in its entirety; it is just back to the normal levels seen in earlier versions.
It follows that the company’s Business Standards have been improved and are therefore now more acceptable to us in comparison to the previous version. However, they still remain Royal Mail’s Business Standards and are not agreed with the union.
One particularly positive aspect of the new Business Standards appears on Page 8 under the sub-heading “Trade union activities and industrial action”. The wording overleaf is far superior to the language in the previous version:
“We support your right to join one of our recognised trade unions, the CWU and Unite/CMA, with whom we have worked for over a century”
The Postal Executive, when considering these developments, felt that it was important that our Branches & Representatives were fully aware that the union has been engaging with management on these critical aspects of the new Business Standards, as no doubt local managers will at times reference them. It is therefore important that our activists are knowledgeable about these matters and can reference the document when needed.
Any queries in relation to this LTB should be directed to Samantha Nicholas at snicholas@cwu.org
Yours sincerely
Andy Furey
Assistant Secretary
LTB 084/26 – Royal Mail Business Standards 2026 – Revised Version
CWU Eastern No5 Branch 
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