Royal Mail fined £ 5.6m for missing delivery targets

[rogersh]

BBC News;

Royal Mail has been fined £5.6m by the regulator for failing to meet its first and second class delivery targets.

Ofcom said that in 2022-23, Royal Mail only delivered 73.7% of first class mail on time and 90.7% of second class mail on time.

It said Royal Mail had breached its obligations by missing targets "by a significant and unexplained margin".

This caused "considerable harm" to customers, and Royal Mail did not take sufficient action to prevent it.

Under Ofcom's rules, Royal Mail has to deliver 93% of first class mail within one working day and 98.5% of second class mail within three working days.

It also has to complete 99.9% of delivery routes for each day on which a delivery is required.

"Clearly, the pandemic had a significant impact on Royal Mail's operations in previous years. But we warned the company it could no longer use that as an excuse, and it just hasn't got things back on track since," said Ian Strawhorne, Ofcom director of enforcement.

"The company's let consumers down, and today's fine should act as a wake-up call - it must take its responsibilities more seriously. We'll continue to hold Royal Mail to account to make sure it improves service levels."

[Jimbo8t2]

Did they save more than 5.6million? Are they saving more by these cuts? What do we think?

[fb1969]

Good to know that after trotting out so much bullshit in the last few years, RM's performance was worse than during covid.

Looking at the figures here for 2020/21 https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/bu ... mance-2021

"during this period Royal Mail delivered 74.7% of first class items within one working day of collection (against a target of 93%) and 93.7% of second class items within three working days of collection (against a target of 98.5%)."


And they get a fine equal to what is apparently not even six day's losses

[funkflex55]

Did they save more than 5.6million? Are they saving more by these cuts? What do we think?

At the old rate of 13.37 times by 35 for PT and full time mix the times by 52 = around 24k per employee.

If we are 10,000 staff that's 243 million saved.
5,000 short is 121.5 million.
Even 1,000 is 24.3 million.

So yeah, RM have won and the ofcom fine means nothing.

[WASD]

Ofcom article states 89.3% of routes completed each day.

It appears Ofcom started their investigation in May, and yet the figures don't match up with what was experienced on the ground. They also report there was no evidence of prioritisation of parcels over letters

To me it appears (again) that the regulator is as useless as the CWU and RM's board of directors and upper management.

The fine achieves nothing, regardless if it were big or small.

[bo72]

If OFCOM think 2022/2023 was bad. What are they going to make of 2023/2024 when the results of these disastrous revisions become apparent?

[youngoffender]

This is a pitiful fine in the context of Royal Mail's egregious failures. It is a microscopic percentage of annual turnover, and as noted above, just adds a few days to current losses. What incentive does the company have to meet its USO obligations, when staffing DOs adequately would cost it many times this? They can simply 'price in' a similar fine for 2023/24 and carry on running the service into the ground.

[Numberone63]

On the news just then. Royal Mail said they have an explanation for the results!!!!!

18 DAYS OF STRIKE ACTION. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So it was our fault. Oh dear.

[Shadedpostie]

“In the evidence we assessed, we did not identify any suggestion that Royal Mail’s senior management had directed the prioritisation of parcels over letters"

Was the inspector completeley high when they came to this conclusion? f***ing idiot, you have thousands of people complaining about their mail being late, friggin staff levels down and they are like, "oh yeah, nothing unusual here!"

[1560loopsayear]

Well with the chronic shortage of staffing, unless they get that coveted change to the USO and drop it down a day or two....the fines will be a regular thing from now on. RM have thrown all their eggs into the basket (i.e. reduced staffing, impractical revisions, and expected forecast in reduced mail volumes) based on that USO reduction.

[Jb1969]

“In the evidence we assessed, we did not identify any suggestion that Royal Mail’s senior management had directed the prioritisation of parcels over letters"

Was the inspector completeley high when they came to this conclusion? f***ing idiot, you have thousands of people complaining about their mail being late, friggin staff levels down and they are like, "oh yeah, nothing unusual here!"

I laughed my head off when I read that, brilliant!
Must of used the old Jedi trick “ we don’t prioritise tracked & here’s £10k!”
Shows how corrupt they really are, in every sense!

[DiamondSmiles]

You have to wonder what is going on behind the scenes between RM and OFCOM for the latter to come to the conclusion that there is nothing to see here, move along when saying they can't see parcels being prioritised. Do OFCOM not want to fine RM even more for the failure to deliver letters and give us a ticking off, only for in a couple of months to bend over backwards and agree to the RM plea to abandon the 6 day USO. There is something currupt going on here I believe.

[nuklearpuppy]

Sweep sweep . Nothing to see here. Just the absolutely disgraceful management pretending everything is hunky dory balancing the dodgy figures . Just shows they will always get away with it no matter what fines are imposed. Pretty much blaming the posties for striking when staffing at an all time low. If ever a time to leave that horrible company ladies and gents it’s now!! . Only gonna get far far worse. They are as corrupt as the Tories and that’s saying something.

[Valentina@1]

Do the CWU still exist?

This is getting ridiculous now.

[twoloops]

Five point six million it should be billion