JULY 14 – Ownership of the Post Office could be put into the hands of its postmasters, the government has suggested, as it launched a public consultation over the future of the service.
The minister responsible, Gareth Thomas, said it was time for “a fresh vision” for the service, but said the government did not plan to reduce the number of branches.
The Post Office operates counters or shops in more than 11,500 locations around the country and is fully state-owned and subsidised by the taxpayer.
Plans for mutualisation have been under discussion for more than a decade, but were sidelined as the scandal around the wrongful conviction of sub-postmasters unfolded.
The government said it also wanted to transform the organisation’s culture in the wake of the scandal which saw hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of false accounting and theft at the branches they were running on the basis of data from faulty accountancy software called Horizon.
The scandal was brought back into the spotlight last week after the public inquiry into what went wrong published its first report, focusing on the impact on sub-postmasters and their families.
“We all know, sadly, the grim legacy… so this is about fixing the fundamental problems,” Thomas told the BBC.
The Post Office had to be transformed so that it was trusted by its postmasters as well as by the general public again, he said.
But he said he also wanted the 12-week consultation to start a national debate over how the organisation should be run in the future, including the options of mutual ownership or a charter model like the BBC.
The consultation includes a question over whether the Post Office should still be required to operate 11,500 branches. However, Thomas said the government believed the current size of the network was “broadly right” and did not foresee closures.
The minister also announced a further £118m to support the work already under way to deliver changes in the Post Office.
Future services
As well as the question of ownership, the government is asking for views on what services the Post Office should offer in future, with a particular focus on banking, as major lenders continue to close High Street branches.
Currently customers can use the Post Office to pay in and withdraw money from accounts at most banks.
They can buy foreign currency, pick up welfare benefit forms and payments, and submit passport applications. But the full range of services are only offered at larger sites.
Research published alongside the so-called Green Paper on the future of Post Office suggests it adds “social value” of £5.2bn per year to households and £1.3bn annually to small and medium-sized businesses.
But the business has struggled to make a profit, relying on tens of millions of pounds of state subsidy, as customers posted fewer letters and turned to online services and other delivery operators, bypassing Post Office counters.
According to the Post Office, currently 99.7% of the population live within three miles of a Post Office and 4,000 of its branches are open seven days a week.
By BBC
