Penalties are being imposed by regulatory body Postcomm after it introduced a tough regulatory regime designed to compensate business customers.
A spokesman for Postwatch, the independent body that monitors Royal Mail's performance, told The Sunday Telegraph: "The Royal Mail has 15 licence service standards and it is unlikely that it achieved any of them in the past year. Because of the automatic compensation scheme for large mailers, the Royal Mail will have to return many millions of pounds to large customers."
Royal Mail has missed its delivery targets for the past three years and the situation is said to be worsening. Performance has been affected by strike action and a radical shake-up within the organisation.
The previous year's target for on-time delivery was set at 92.5%. Royal Mail achieved only 91.7% and was fined a record £7.5m by Postcomm under its compensation scheme. By the end of the third quarter this year, only 90.3% of letters were being delivered on time.
Meanwhile, the Royal Mail has hit out at plans to open up the postal market to competition, claiming that the move will lead to an increase in the price of stamps.
In a report to Postcomm, Royal Mail says that consumers will lose out. At present, Royal Mail enjoys a VAT-free status. If a 5% VAT rate were introduced, Royal Mail has said it would be able to offset some of the cost by recovering the tax in certain parts of the business, such as van fleet. Customers would therefore see a 2.5% or 1p rise on a first-class stamp.
Royal Mail, chaired by Allan Leighton, claims that the price increases are at odds with one of the major reasons for Postcomm's existence, which is to protect consumers from unnecessary price rises.
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