PART of the region has been named and shamed as having among the worst postal services in the country -with one in ten letters delivered late.

Only 90.1 per cent of first-class post sent to Teesside's sorting office reached its destination the next day, according to the National Audit Office (NAO) study.

And only 11 of the 123 mail centres across Britain had a worse performance in the 12 months to March last year, the watchdog found.

The figure of 90.1 per cent falls short of the target set for the Royal Mail last year of delivering 92.5 per cent of first-class post the next day.

The problem of late mail is getting worse, because Teesside does not feature in the list of 20 worst centres for any of the previous three years.

Edward Leigh, Tory chairman of the Commons' public accounts committee, which works closely with the NAO, accused Royal Mail of "chronic failures at a local level".

He said: "There are still areas in the country - urban areas especially - where it is consistently failing to meet its target for delivering first-class post within one working day."

In its report, the NAO blamed the problem on Royal Mail being overburdened with regulation and called for a gradual "withdrawing" by regulator Postcomm, which was set up in 2001.

Recommended measures included fewer targets, more automatic penalties and cutting the length and detail of investigations into Royal Mail services.

Ironically, postal deliveries had improved since regulation was introduced, but certain areas - including Teesside, Liverpool, Oxford and large areas of London -were falling short of targets.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "Royal Mail is currently delivering a record high-quality of service to its customers, but we are determined to do even better."

About 84 million items of post are sent every day by businesses and individuals to 27 million addresses.