Ofcom fines Royal Mail £10.5m for late deliveries
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Britain's communications regulator has slapped Royal Mail with a fine for late deliveries for the second time since the pandemic. Ofcom levied a £10.5million fine after it found that Royal Mail had only delivered 74.7 per cent of first-class mail and 92.7 per cent of second-class post on time between April 2023 and March 2024.
The postal service is legally required to deliver 93 per cent of first-class mail within one working day of collection and 98.5 per cent of second-class mail within three working days of collection. Royal Mail claimed the targets were missed due to its difficult financial situation and delays to the ballot on a pay deal following industrial action by the Communication Workers' Union last year.
However, Ofcom said neither of these excuses were 'justifiable reasons' for the firm providing an insufficient level of service. While acknowledging that Royal Mail has lost hundreds of millions of pounds, it insisted that the company bore ultimate responsibility for managing its fiscal position.
Targets missed: Ofcom found that Royal Mail had only delivered three-quarters of first-class mail and 92.7 per cent of second-class post on time between April 2023 and March 2024. It added that the group took 'insufficient and ineffective steps to try and prevent this failure, which is likely to have impacted millions of customers who did not get the service they paid for'.
