Opinion: Is the Post Office safe in your hands, Mr Davey?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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I write as a lifelong Liberal/Lib Dem and former councillor. I am sadly having to remain anonymous so that my wife is not made subject to reprisals for my views.

Lib Dem Voice recently claimed the future of the Post Office network is secure. I would like to present a counter (sic) viewpoint.

My wife took on a Post Office 10 years ago and her guaranteed monthly salary then was £620. Now, its £800 for a 48-hour working week – less than £3.70 an hour. Any further income is based on transactions alone.

Thanks to a hell of a lot of hard work, she managed to grow her total income from £18,000 to £32,000 at which point she could afford some part time help.

Now, with the loss of various government-related contracts all, bizarrely, designed to cut costs (but which just leaves a bigger hole for Government to subsidise) her income is below £24,000 and due to the dog-in-a-manger attitude of the Post Office contract she is BARRED from even offering successor services.

I am afraid that a very cynical trick is being foisted on us, under the guise of modernisation, a cynical trick that even Labour would not have been attempted.

My understanding is that the guaranteed payment to sub postmasters will be scaled back or even eradicated, meaning that postmasters incomes will be significantly reduced.

Many of the transaction payments are fractional percentages or literally penny amounts. If the basic payment is chopped, there do not seem to be any plans to increase the transaction payments to compensate.

This will potentially make many sub-Post Offices unviable, almost regardless of how well-used they are. Incidentally, the new subpostmaster contract I believe starts in April, but no formal details have yet been released to those affected.

The cynical part is that, under the new arrangements, once a subpostmaster’s income has been reduced below a viable level, their business is downgraded to a “Post Office Local” and moved to the nearest shop or petrol station that will take it, BUT they will be unable to offer the full range of transactions or even carry enough cash to pay more than a few pensions.

So ‘the network’ may remain in number terms, but many of the outlets that remain will be little more than a stamp vending machine – BUT we’ll have kept the promise not to cut offices. This downgrading will further erode the relevance of Post Offices in an electronic age.

The real irony is that all these ‘efficient’ independent, privatised couriers ride on the back of Post Offices by dropping their undelivered parcels at Post Offices.

As a service to their customers, rural POs allow this, so the courier company meets its delivery target by getting a signature and avoids the enormous costs involved in re-deliveries. If Ed Davey should be doing anything, it should be formalising that arrangement with couriers to generate income for postmasters.