LONDON (AFP) – United Kingdom (UK) postal operator Royal Mail has been fined GBP10.5 million (USD13.3 million) for delays in delivering mail for the 2023/2024 financial year, Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom said yesterday.
The fine is nearly double the penalty given to it by the watchdog last year, as the UK’s struggling postal service has failed to sufficiently improve its six-days-a-week service.
Royal Mail delivered on time 74.7 per cent of first-class post and 92.7 per cent of second-class post, according to the regulator.
That fell short of targets of 93 per cent and 98.5 per cent, respectively.
“With millions of letters arriving late, far too many people aren’t getting what they pay for when they buy a stamp,” said Ofcom’s director of enforcement Ian Strawhorne. “Royal Mail’s poor service is now eroding public trust in one of the UK’s oldest institutions,” he said of the 500-year-old postal service.
Ofcom said it took into account that Royal Mail had been “losing hundreds of millions of pounds”, noting that the fine for the former state monopoly would be passed in full to the Treasury department.
Royal Mail, which was privatised in 2013, has suffered in recent years from falling parcel volumes, failures in mail delivery and strikes over pay.
The penalty comes as Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky awaits government approval for a GBP3.6 billion (USD3.8 billion) deal to buy the postal service from current owner International Distribution Services (IDS).
Britain’s communications regulator has previously proposed that Royal Mail cut delivery to five days a week, or even just three days, potentially saving the company hundreds of millions of pounds.
