Royal Mail hit with huge fine for late post

Ofcom said that, even after taking circumstances into account, Royal Mail fell short of its targets by a ‘significant and unexplained margin’

Royal Mail has been fined £5.6m by regulator Ofcom for a ‘significant’ failure to meet its postal delivery targets in the past financial year (Rui Vieira/PA) (PA Wire)

Royal Mail has been fined £5.6 million by regulator Ofcom for a “significant” failure to meet its postal delivery targets in the past financial year.

Ofcom imposed the penalty following an investigation launched in May after Royal Mail fell short of its performance targets across the 2022 to 2023 financial year for first and second class mail deliveries.

Some 73.7% of first class mail was delivered within one working day across the year, against a target of 93%, while 90.7% of second class mail was delivered within three working days, compared with the target of 98.5%.

And 89.35% of delivery routes were completed on the required day, well behind the 99.9% target.

The postal watchdog said that, even after taking into account strike action disruption, extreme weather and the closure of the runway at Stansted Airport, Royal Mail’s first and second class performance was still only 82% and 95.5% respectively.

Ofcom said: “This means that Royal Mail breached its obligations by failing to meet its targets by a significant and unexplained margin.

“This caused considerable harm to customers, and Royal Mail took insufficient steps to try and prevent this failure.”