UK’s Royal Mail hit with fine by regulator over delivery delays

UK’s Royal Mail hit with fine by regulator over delivery delays

LONDON, Dec 13, 2024 (BSS/AFP) – UK postal operator Royal Mail has been fined

o10.5 million ($13.3 million) for delays in delivering mail for the 2023/2024

financial year, Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom said Friday.

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 percent of first-class post and 92.7

percent of second-class post, according to the regulator.

That fell short of targets of 93 percent and 98.5 percent, respectively.

“With millions of letters arriving late, far too many people aren’t getting

what they pay for when they buy a stamp,” said Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom’s

director of enforcement.

“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 o3.6 billion ($3.8 billion) deal to buy the postal service

from current owner International Distribution Services.

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.

IDS has long called for a shakeup of the universal service obligation (USO),

which stipulates that Royal Mail must deliver letters six days a week to all

32 million addresses in the UK for the price of a stamp.

However, in Kretinsky’s bid to take over the service, he has already

guaranteed to maintain the USO.