Royal Mail has been fined £10.5m for missing postal delivery targets.
Regulator Ofcom said 74.7% of first class mail and 92.7% of second class was delivered on time in 2023/24.
The targets were 93% and 98.5%.
It is the second time Ofcom has fined Royal Mail since the pandemic and it “needs to do much better”, the regulator said
The company blamed a “challenging financial position” for its poor performance, Ofcom said in a statement.
There were also “delays to the ballot on a deal that followed the previous year’s industrial action”.
But Ofcom said it did “not consider either of these to be justifiable reasons for Royal Mail’s failure to provide the levels of service expected of it”, adding that the company had “breached its obligations”.
Royal Mail also took “insufficient and ineffective steps to try and prevent this failure”, with millions of customers likely to have been affected, the regulator said.
It went on: “Ultimately, it is for the company to manage its financial position, taking account of its obligations.”
The fine will be passed “in full” to the “public purse”.
Ofcom said it had been “pressing Royal Mail regularly” on plans to turns things around.
It commented: “While there has been some progress, its overall performance in 2023/24 was only marginally better than its reported performance in 2022/23, and it needs to do much better.
“At a minimum we expect to see a clear, credible and publicly-communicated plan setting out how Royal Mail will get back on track through meaningful, sustainable and continuous improvements for customers.
“Having failed to hit its targets in 2022/23, Royal Mail did not set out a clear improvement plan for 2023/24.”
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