Peter – agree that once the PO was made a business rather than a public service (was that a Conservative or Labour govt decision?) things were bound to become difficult for low-volume sub POs. I take yesterday’s decision to be an indication that the Govt is looking to route many services through local POs as people do still see them as a public/community resource rather than a business like a local branch of Greggs the baker or whatever.

1 Who ignored the debt spiral as it built up?

2 Who weakened regulation and allowed Northern Rock to offer 125 per cent mortgages?

3 Who diminished Bank of England control over our banking system?

4 Who wrecked final salary pensions with a 5 billion pound a year levy?

5 Who ignored the risks of the house price and equity boom?

…and I have’nt even mentioned the gold reserves….

Nick

Basically once the decision was made to put the PO on to a commercial footing the righting was on the wall. Those who depend on the post office most don’t tend to have much spending power so unless it is subsidised or finds new business it is in trouble.

the Highlands is particularly difficult as we have lots of very small offices many run be retired people almost as a community service. In some cases they use their pension to subsidies the business and when they go so does the PO. A real underlying issue has been unplanned closures where people throw in the towel and no one wants the business.

A friend of mine closed his last year and was delighted to do so as since the loss of benefits he had spent the last five years working harder every year for less money. When he was doing council tax payments over the counter less than 10% of what PO Ltd charged the council went to him which meant that even without Overheads and NI it was impossible to do enough transactions to cover the minimum wage.

Since closure he’s had the first full holiday of ever a week in four years and spend his time doing relief work in other PO’s. He doesn’t have the pressure or work as long hours, but his income has gone up.

I remember being in a debate almost seven years ago in the Council when the benefits changes were being discussed and calling for PO’s to be allowed to offer independent financial advice in the wake of miss selling. Now we seem to be getting that form Lord Yacht.

Unless the government makes the choice to turn PO’s into the service deliver point for all state agencies, Local government NHS benefits and payments it just won’t generate the income needed to sustain a network.

As long as each government department or agency is allowed to make it’s own narrow commercial decisions about providers without any over arching policy the PO will continue to leach business.

This should be a central issue in the next general election but unless the public push all parties (including my own) for a definitive plan for the future of the PO, the problems will just continue to fester.

Peter.