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.
It blamed a “challenging financial position” for its poor performance, the regulator said.
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”.
