Postcomm reported that it had found features of Royal Mail’s procedures not being applied across the business, the most significant being poor management of the recruitment and training of agency staff. Also, the framework and information systems Royal Mail had in place to prevent the loss, theft or damage to mail were not being used effectively.

Postcomm has previously imposed a penalty of £7.5 million in December 2003, after the company had failed to meet delivery performance standards for two types of business mail.