Post Office Closure Consultations A Sham?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/te ... 2&zoneid=3

29 January 2008 by Mark White - © Hellmail.co.uk

This is a difficult year for domestic postal users in Britain. Top of the agenda has to be the closing of thousands of Post Offices, and despite hundreds of petitions and demonstrations, the cull has continued - somewhat brutally. Many opposing the closures say that consultations have been a sham and that Post Office Ltd has simply made up its mind which will go and in most cases, merely paid lip service to local consultations.

Lets be under no illusions here. We DO have too many, but the selection process is based more on economics than geographics and the practicalities involved for those that actually use these Post Offices - or those it will affect in the longer term including adjacent businesses.

The closure plan is being phased over some nine months, presumably to minimise the backlash one might otherwise expect had all closures been announced in one go, but the amount being targeted for closure remains the same and where one is saved from the axe, another inevitably takes its place.

We also seem to be experiencing a spate of postal theft that is causing a great deal of concern at Hellmail. Postal workers are quick to blame Royal Mail for this, saying that extended routes and tougher working conditions are 'driving' employees to cut corners or steal, but I really don't buy that argument. There can be NO excuse for stealing birthday cards, cheque books and cards from the Royal Mail. If I detested the job THAT much, I simply wouldn't do it. Stealing from customers because a person isn't happy with working conditions is inexcusable. Every time a dishonest post person makes the headlines, the rest of the workforce are effectively tarred with the same brush and that can be enormously damaging not just for business but jobs too. The whole principle of collection and delivery is based entirely on trust and if postal workers gain a reputaton for being 'light fingered'. the entire postal system will become obsolete in a very short space of time.

Call me cynical, but I have an inbuilt mistrust of 'streamlining' exercises. 'Efficiency' invariably means 'cheap and cheerful' and with it goes morale and confidence in the service - both inside and out. You can't 'bully' a workforce into cutting a service to the bone. All that happens is you lose good staff only to replace them with bad, and the process then spirals out of control. Bad press can really finish a business - 'Yes Car Credit' being one that died through bad practice and bad publicity and for any business, there is a very fine line between cutting costs and going down the pan. Reputation is essential - or at least a good one is.

Royal mail relies heavily on its image, and over the last two years - completely dependent on it. The trouble is, this isn't the same Royal Mail any more. It is being squeezed by European initiatives that are wholly business-driven and 'pride' has been replaced with "Well ok, how cheaply can we do that job then?"

I have nothing against efficiency and savings as a whole, but this isn't like the privatisation of gas or water. Royal Mail is still the provider of the Universal Service. This is a service that the population is very reliant on and with few alternatives either. Butchering a postal service when rivals have no intention of taking on the core of the service seems madness. One could understand the principle if postal operators were fighting to deliver birthday cards but they're not. There simply isn't enough money in delivering domestic post. Postcomm know this only too well and are trying to encourage more players on to the pitch and reduce Royal Mail's monopoly but simply lowering the licence fees won't be enough - it just promotes a 'cheap and cheerful' ethos that will plague our postal service for years to come.

As for 'targets', these are only relevant at the time the targets are set. As the postal business 'evolves' (for want of a better word) targets will be reassessed and set in the context of what the provider is realistically able to deliver at that time. Targets are not a protection for consumers, nor should they ever be seen as such. Central government was keen to leap ahead with deregulation because (in principle) it would save money. The savings to business in terms of postal expenditure are there, but we're not exactly making leaps and bounds with all of this and if anything, we're creating more problems in other areas. Domestic postal users have been 'smoothed' over by giving them a postal organisation they can call (in the shape of Postwatch) but the level of service we get has actually gone down - no second deliveries, fewer collections, no Sunday collections, fewer Post Offices and stamps likely to go up again.

Royal Mail wants 'zonal pricing' and to be honest, I can see them getting their way in the end. Government isn't keen to go down that road for fear of the concept being applied to domestic post and undermining the 'same price - any distance' principle of the Universal Service but it can only be a matter of time before it is adopted. We have already shifted to a 'size' method of pricing which sees thousands of mail users fined with administration charges for underpaid items - particularly at Christmas. We just don't want that. Who wants to have to measure items to get the right postage or have to walk to the Post Office that probably isn't there any more, just to make sure we've got it right? The whole principle of sending an item has just become more complex with delays through fewer collection opportunities.

Couldn't all of this have been solved by bringing postage charges in line with what it actually costs to collect and deliver or is that too simple?


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[TrueBlueTerrier]

Is it my imagination or is Hellmail becoming more balanced since the demise of PostmanChat.

[Night Tonic]

Its a consumer site so not geared to our worries but they do have some good articles on there. I read it most days - few articles by postal workers that were well written I thought. Been there a long while. Don't see it as biased - it just has a different viewpoint. Useful to see the business from the outside sometimes.

[F0zziebear]

Knowing the senior mgmt in Royal Mail as I do, they do not take glee in sitting there slashing out rural post offices. They have made it quite clear to anyone who is willing to listen that if you give us the money then we can keep them open, if you don't and you want the books balanced then the least impacting sites go. This includes, DO, MC's, managerial jobs etc... In fact Crozier etc... would prefer to shed more managerial jobs than anything else.

It's like BT today announcing that 223 phonebox's weren't used last year. Then on the radio they get people from villages complaining about removing their vital services. Hold on we are subsidising them for services they don't use. Simple as. So who is going to pay for this? I work hard most days and see large chunks of my income disappearing on numerous taxes. Loads seems to go to people who get themselves into trouble (prisons, hospitals, rural communities). I have a moral viewpoint and think that rural life has a lot to teach others, but standing there moaning and sitting in their lcoal pubs drinking away their social security sometimes makes me wonder.

My Tory leaning rant is voer now, hold it's Labour who are doing this! Lembit for president!

[DGP1]

Knowing the senior mgmt in Royal Mail as I do, they do not take glee in sitting there slashing out rural post offices. They have made it quite clear to anyone who is willing to listen that if you give us the money then we can keep them open, if you don't and you want the books balanced then the least impacting sites go. This includes, DO, MC's, managerial jobs etc... In fact Crozier etc... would prefer to shed more managerial jobs than anything else.

It's like BT today announcing that 223 phonebox's weren't used last year. Then on the radio they get people from villages complaining about removing their vital services. Hold on we are subsidising them for services they don't use. Simple as. So who is going to pay for this? I work hard most days and see large chunks of my income disappearing on numerous taxes. Loads seems to go to people who get themselves into trouble (prisons, hospitals, rural communities). I have a moral viewpoint and think that rural life has a lot to teach others, but standing there moaning and sitting in their lcoal pubs drinking away their social security sometimes makes me wonder.

My Tory leaning rant is voer now, hold it's Labour who are doing this! Lembit for president!

[jemima]

, disgruntledpostie1

F0zziebear, services in rural communities need to be kept open where no alternative exists. If you live in a rural area where mobile phones don't work, you normally would use a landline telephone, not the call box. But if there's an emergency, say your house catches fire, it's comforting to know there's a public telephone down the road. And if its upkeep needs paying for, BT should ask nearby householders for help before complaining. Many "rural communities" are to a large extent made up from people who commute to towns to work and who can afford to help if there's a problem with keeping the village as they like it. The same thing goes for some Post Offices, but there's no option for direct local sponsorship of those either. RM haven't asked the communities to help.