Royal Mail has been handed a whopping £21 million fine by Ofcom for catastrophically failing to deliver letters on time, marking the third year in a row the 509-year-old postal service has been penalised for letting down millions of customers who simply aren’t getting what they pay for when they buy a stamp.
The communications regulator found that Royal Mail delivered just 77% of first-class mail and 92.5% of second-class mail on time during the 2024-25 financial year, falling spectacularly short of its legally required delivery performance targets of 93% and 98.5% respectively.
This represents the third-largest fine Ofcom has ever issued to any company, and would have been even higher at £30 million if Royal Mail hadn’t admitted liability and agreed to settle the case.
The Numbers That Tell a Damning Story
Let’s be clear about what these figures actually mean for real people waiting for real letters.
Nearly one in four first-class letters failed to arrive the next working day as promised, despite customers paying £1.70 per stamp following yet another price increase in April.
For second-class mail, while 92.5% might sound reasonable to some, it still means millions of letters arriving late across the UK, with potentially devastating consequences for the people waiting for them.
Ofcom’s investigation took into account exceptional circumstances like storms and floods during the period, but found that even accounting for extreme weather events, Royal Mail still fell catastrophically short of its universal service obligation targets.
The regulator made it abundantly clear that Royal Mail had “taken insufficient and ineffective steps” to prevent this failure, which has likely impacted millions of customers who did not receive the service they paid for.
Real People Suffering Real Consequences
Citizens Advice has highlighted the devastating real-world impact of Royal Mail’s persistent failures, sharing examples that should make your blood boil.
One person received a council tax bill, a court summons for a hearing date that had already passed, and a liability order for the debt all at the same time because Royal Mail had failed to deliver the letters when they were actually sent.
Another customer was sent an eviction notice that still hadn’t arrived more than a week after a copy came from the landlord’s solicitors, leaving them unsure whether the warrant would arrive before the bailiffs turned up at their door.
These aren’t just statistics or abstract performance metrics. These are people’s lives being upended because a formerly reliable public service has been run into the ground under foreign ownership.
The Third Strike in Three Years
This £21 million penalty represents the third consecutive year Royal Mail has been fined for missing delivery targets, bringing the total cost of their abysmal performance to over £37 million since 2023.
The previous fines were £10.5 million last year and £5.6 million in 2023, demonstrating an escalating pattern of failure that shows no sign of improvement despite mounting financial penalties.
Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom’s director of enforcement, didn’t mince words: “Millions of important letters are arriving late, and people aren’t getting what they pay for when they buy a stamp. These persistent failures are unacceptable, and customers expect and deserve better.”
He added that Royal Mail “must rebuild consumers’ confidence as a matter of urgency” and that this means “making actual significant improvements, not more empty promises.”
The fact that Ofcom felt compelled to specifically mention “empty promises” tells you everything you need to know about Royal Mail’s track record of talking a good game while delivering nothing but disappointment.
Failed Improvement Plans and Hollow Commitments on Delivery Performance
What makes this latest fine particularly galling is that Royal Mail had produced an improvement plan for the 2024-25 year, promising to achieve 85% for first-class mail and 97% for second-class mail by March 2025.
They failed even these reduced targets spectacularly.
Ofcom called it “unacceptable” that the promised improvements had not materialised, and has now ordered Royal Mail to urgently publish and implement a “credible plan” showing how they’ll actually deliver meaningful change.
The regulator expects to see “meaningful progress soon” and warned bluntly that “if this doesn’t happen, fines are likely to continue.”
Royal Mail has also been set a new enforceable target requiring 99% of mail to be delivered no more than two days late, a basic standard that shouldn’t need regulatory enforcement but apparently does.
All This While Hiking Prices and Cutting Services
The timing of this fine is particularly rich given that Royal Mail increased stamp prices again in April 2025, with first-class stamps rising 5p to £1.70 and second-class stamps climbing 2p to 87p.
So customers are now paying more for a service that’s demonstrably getting worse, which is exactly the kind of logic that only makes sense in the world of monopoly postal services under foreign ownership.
Meanwhile, Ofcom gave Royal Mail permission in July to water down its universal service obligation even further, ending second-class post on Saturdays and reducing the service to alternating weekdays from Monday to Friday.
The company claimed these changes would take “many months” to roll out, and are now pointing to pilot programs showing “improvements in deliveries” as evidence their new model is working.
But given Royal Mail’s track record of promising improvements that never materialise, you’d be forgiven for greeting these claims with the skepticism they deserve.
The Křetínský Era Begins as Planned
This latest debacle comes just six months after Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský completed his controversial £3.6 billion purchase of Royal Mail’s owner, International Distribution Services, following approval from a UK government national security review.
The takeover was meant to herald a new era of investment and improvement for the struggling postal service, with Křetínský making various commitments about maintaining service standards and protecting jobs.
Instead, we’ve got record fines for catastrophic service failures, continued price increases, and service cuts that would have been unthinkable when Royal Mail was a genuinely public service rather than a profit extraction vehicle.
Royal Mail reported its first annual profit for three years in September 2024, the first financial results since the takeover was completed.
Apparently returning to profitability doesn’t require actually delivering letters on time, just cutting costs and raising prices while letting service standards collapse.
Royal Mail’s Predictable Response
In response to the £21 million fine, a Royal Mail spokesperson trotted out the usual corporate waffle: “We acknowledge the decision made by Ofcom today and we will continue to work hard to deliver further sustained improvements to our quality of service.”
They pointed to “important changes across our network including recruiting, retaining and training our people, and providing additional support to delivery offices” as evidence they’re taking the problem seriously.
The spokesperson added that “where we have piloted universal service changes, we can see that our model is working, with improvements in deliveries” and claimed this would “help us deliver a modern, reliable and more financially sustainable postal service.”
These are exactly the kind of “empty promises” that Ofcom specifically called out in announcing the fine, suggesting the regulator has heard this song and dance before and isn’t buying it anymore.
A Pattern of Decline Under Foreign Ownership
This latest fine fits perfectly into the broader pattern of Royal Mail’s catastrophic decline since being sold to foreign ownership.
We’ve previously documented how Royal Mail announced major delays across 20 UK postcodes due to widespread staff shortages and operational failures, with the company blaming everything except its own management decisions.
The latest price hike that hit small businesses particularly hard in October showed Royal Mail’s priorities clearly: squeeze more money from customers while delivering less service.
Some observers have even questioned whether Royal Mail is deliberately missing delivery targets to build the case for further service cuts and reduced obligations.
The company’s convenient return to profit coinciding with worsening service standards suggests where management attention has actually been focused.
What Happens Next?
Ofcom has made it clear that unless Royal Mail delivers “actual significant improvements” rather than more promises, fines will continue and likely escalate.
The £21 million penalty, while substantial, represents just a fraction of Royal Mail’s annual revenue and may not be enough to force genuine change in behaviour.
What’s needed is accountability that actually hurts, whether through even larger fines, stricter enforcement of service standards, or fundamental reform of how the universal service obligation is structured and monitored.
For now, millions of people across the UK will continue dealing with late letters, missed court dates, undelivered bills, and the constant frustration of paying premium prices for an increasingly unreliable service.
The 509-year-old institution that once represented the gold standard in postal delivery has become just another example of what happens when essential public services are sold off to foreign billionaires more interested in profit extraction than actually serving the public.
And the £21 million fine, while welcome, feels like little more than a slap on the wrist for a company that’s fundamentally failing to do the one job it’s legally obligated to perform: delivering the mail on time.
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