Big Bonus Cheques in the Post

[norbert]

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It has to asked , where did the ruthlessly commercial approach to Britain's Post Offices and with it the massive " modernization ' programme come from .

The current policy originates from the New Labour Shareholder Executive , announced by then Chancellor Brown tasked to " better fulfil the ( the Government's ) role as shareholder `" of the top 25 publicly - owned companies like Royal Fail . It's target , on which these bosses and their subordinates bonuses depended , was to increase the value of the sixth largest companies by £1 billion by 2007 .

Any notion that public corporations were also to provide a service went out of the window , especially with the men that were brought in for the job , first led by ex CSFB investment banker Richard Gillingwater and now by Deutsche Bank analyst Stephen Lovegrove . .

This was achieved largely by boosting the financial ( with help from some legal creative accounting ) results at Royal Mail following the installation of despised Senior Management such as CEO Adam Crozier on multi - million pound bonuses for short term boosting of profits without penalties for RM's shortcomings . Not surprisingly , under Leighton and Crozier and Co , closures and redundancies have been the order of the day .

Not only have the Shareholder Executives have a financial interest in slashing services , they are also responsible for the advice New Labour ministers get on the PO generally , which tends to compromise the supposedly neutral , objective traditions of the Civil Service .
It was no small wonder that it resulted in a cull of 2,500 " surplus to requirements " Post Offices .

When Commons Public Accounts Committee Chairman Edward Leigh asked the then Stakeholder Executive Boss Bryant last year if he was " responsible for trailing a blaze of destruction across the land " .
Bryant replied " I could not possibly answer that Sir " .

The correct answer would be yes , as he ultimately decided that the bankers should be brought in to put the squeeze on public companies .