Royal Mail has been fined £5.6m by industry regulator Ofcom for failing to deliver post on time and criticised for “letting consumers down”.
Royal Mail delivered 74% of its first class post within one working day, missing the target of 93% laid out by the regulator. Just over 90% of its second class post was delivered on time, within three working days, well under the target of 98.5%.
The postal service is also required to complete 99.9% of delivery routes for each day on which a delivery is required but fell short at 89.35%.
The failed delivery targets fall in the financial year 2022/23.
Even after adjusting Royal Mail’s performance for the impact of strikes, extreme weather and the Stansted runway closure, its first and second class postal performance was still only 82% and 95.5% respectively.
Royal Mail has been accused of breaching its obligations by failing to meet its targets by a significant and unexplained margin, causing considerable harm to its customers and taking insufficient steps to try and stop it from happening.
The penalty includes a 30% reduction to reflect its admission of liability and agreement to settle the case.
Pandemic is not an excuse
Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom director of enforcement, said: “Royal Mail’s role in our lives carries huge responsibility and we know from our research that customers value reliability and consistency.
“Clearly, the pandemic had a significant impact on Royal Mail’s operations in previous years. But we warned the company it could no longer use that as an excuse, and it just hasn’t got things back on track since.
“The company has let consumers down, and today’s fine should act as a wake-up call – it must take its responsibilities more seriously. We’ll continue to hold Royal Mail to account to make sure it improves service levels.”
As part of Ofcom’s investigation, it uncovered concerns about the operation of delivery offices which have been impacted by high absences, vacancies and delays in bringing service levels back up to standard. This has led to managers responsible for the delivery offices making “on the day” decisions about what post should be delivered.
Ofcom said it would be keeping a “close eye” on the company’s performance this year and the steps it is taking to return delivery offices to pre-Covid practices.
The fine is payable to the Treasury within two months.
