What the NFSP Receives From Post Office Ltd

[cdpete2004]

Ok, I know some stuff I post is sometimes offensive, and meant to get a rise out of board users. This is a serious post though. I'm getting seriously frustrated with POl and their transformation (TERMINATION) program. I'm wondering how they're being allowed to tear up contracts on the sale of an existing business, rendering the business only sellable at about half the goodwill price it would have been worth a few months ago. Anyway, more on that as things progress. I would appreciate hearing other spmrs views on this 'transformation' though, as all we seem to be getting is 'happy days are here at last' propaganda from NFSP and the NT team. I can't believe I'm the only one feeling I'm being robbed of my investment and am being stuck with an unsellable business.

I've been looking into getting some information out of Post Office Ltd about how exactly the £1.3 billion subsidy 'to modernise the network' is being spent, considering SPMRs are seeing our pay rates cut year after year. I reckon the £1.3 billion works out at a subsidy of £120,000 to every Post Office, give or take a couple thousand.

Anyway, I've been distracted in my search, as I came across this little gem : Someone asked recently how much POL had given to the NFSP in the last 12 months. The question was asked, and answered, under the 'Freedom Of Information Act'. The amount ? £538,000 in 12 months. that's excluding 'advertising' in their magazine. (all the Freedom of Information Act reply is below). If NFSP members wonder why their organisation are so happy to see pay and conditions slashed year after year ? these figures should show them who the NFSP are REALLY representing. Does anyone know if CWU are similarly paid by RM ?



From: FOIA
Sent: 01 March 2013 15:39
To: [FOI #148283 email]
Subject: Freedom of Information Request – CALS-94LKLB



Dear Ms Aspinall,



Ref: Freedom of Information Request – CALS-94LKLB



I am writing in response to your email received by Post Office Limited on
01 February 2013, which I am dealing with under the terms of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000.



In your email you have requested information to the following question:



Please could you supply me with the details of all payments made to the
National Federation of Subpostmasters from 01/01/2012 to 01/02/2013?



I can confirm that we do hold the information you have requested.



Post Office Ltd have made £178K in payment to the NFSP for facilities
payments within the period you have requested, as advised in our previous
responses, dated 11 October 2012 (Ref: CALS-8Y5D25) and 12 November 2012
(Ref; OOLO-8Z7CH4) these payments would be reported within the NFSP annual
accounts.



Post Office Ltd has also made £3K in payment to the NFSP for the NFSP
Benevolent Fund within the period you have requested.



In addition Post Office Ltd has made payment of £7.3k, for the period to
the NFSP for attendance and sponsorship at the NFSP Annual Conference, as
previously explained the payments cover the cost of Post Office employees
attending, exhibition space and our annual sponsorship of a conference
dinner.



Lastly Post Office Ltd has made payment of £350.2K for Network
Transformation and support activities to the NFSP for the period. These
payments cover items such as the expenses and costs of the NFSP attending
road shows held for subpostmaster’s, the cost of NFSP meetings, workshops
and extraordinary NFSP member communication costs related to the Network
Transformation Programme.



Post Office Ltd also purchases advertising space within the Subpostmaster
magazine. However, Post Office Ltd believes that this information is
exempt from disclosure under Section 43 (2) (Commercial Interests) of the
Freedom of Information Act.



Commercial Interests

Post Office Limited believes that disclosure of information relating to
financial spend to another party for the purposes of purchasing
advertising space is likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Post
Office, which could be used by other parties in negotiations with Post
Office Ltd and the NFSP.

Public Interest

[The BFO]

I wonder how so much public money can be spent on a largely cosmetic exercise when important public services are facing severe budget reductions.

[cdpete2004]

It seems nobody is demanding any accountability, which is why I'm going to try a FOIA to find out how the 1.34 billion is being spent, and has been spent already. I want OUT of the network, and assuming I can't get any legal recourse to challenge POL's tearing up of the existing contract, I'm set to get approx £38,000 compensation, (£8,000 of which is taxable), and will be stuck with what effectively is an unwanted, commercial property in a street with a number of other commercial properties, all unwanted, which may bring £40,000 - £50,000 at auction. Total return on closure = £88,000. In 2006 we paid £152,000. We put our life savings in, and took out a mortgage. We still owe £70,000 on the mortgage. Until they changed the new contract rules this year for incoming SPMRs, we may have expected to sell in the region of £120,000. Now, if we could sell, it would be for £100,000 tops, based on new remuneration model. Oh, and the incoming SPMR would be expected to open longer hours just for good measure. If an existing business (like SPAR, or LONDIS, or another national chain) takes over, POL gives them £10,000 to add a PO to their counter.

I really don't have anything to lose by taking legal action, and hopefully bringing to light all the shady dealings that have gone on the past few years between POL, the government, and NFSP, supposedly there to represent their members' interests. Must be hard for NFSP to speak out against their host though, and their plans, when they're paying you a half million pounds to travel the country with them. biting the hand that feeds it, and all that.

I really would like to know if any other SPMRs, or anybody who knows of any other SPMR, in a similar position.

[newsubbie]

cdpete - a few of us certainly are.

We purchased our office exactly two years ago. We put in every penny we had, and took out a mortgage for the difference. Shortly before exchange of contracts the information was leaked about post office locals. The POL regional field change manager categorically stated to us that our branch would be too large to be a local, as did the NFSP. So we went ahead with the purchase (£300k - including living space). We're a 55k two position office (this has increased by 10% since we took over). In September we had our visit to be told they'd like to change us to a 'local' with just 33k remuneration. We already operate our retail sales from the secure area, so no cost savings are to be found.

We've been well and truly shafted. Instead of POL investing in our business and helping us to grow we're being left to wither, with no sense of security about what may happen in 2015. I believe POL have acted totally immorally, but also illegally in the way they represented these changes to us. All of that money could have been spent to really revitalise the entire network - new products, a facelift, atms in rural areas etc. Instead it is just being spent on spin! So would I consider legal action? Of course - we were mis-sold and lied to by POL. They will argue that nothing is compulsory and our current contracts stand. However, how can we continue to invest in our businesses without knowing what is round the corner? People aren't seeing the squeeze that POL are putting on us - no actual pay rises, no investment, more free work, more business lost. It's really a case of finding enough of us I'd imagine...

[cdpete2004]

Hi newsubbie.

We (my wife and I) bought the office in September 2006. This is briefly where we're at right now : We had our office up for sale about 12 months before this 'NT' plan came into existence. We were categoricaly told that if the office could be sold by 31/12/12 the old contract would be available to any incoming SPMR. We were also categorically told that 31/12/12 was definitely the cutoff date for existing contract terms and conditions. In the last 'Modernisation matters' propaganda pamphlet, it's announced that this cut off date was not only already extended to 31/03/13, but is being further extended to 30/06/13. Of course, we withdrew our office from the market prior to the 31/12 deadline as 1) we couldn't market it at the exisitng asking price given remuneration was going to be halved after 01/01/13, 2) if we reduced the asking price to reflect the lower remuneration, by the time we paid Humberstones their £5000 fee, we'd be even more 'in the hole' by the time we accepted an offer. I also asked our NT advisor why he didn't tell us the date has been extended - we last met and talked with him in February. His reply 'I didn't know myself of any extension as it hadn't been announced at that time'.

As of now, I'm claiming an additonal £50,000 from POL (on top of the existing compensation offer), for loss of value of the business, for being left with an unsaleable business, and an unsellable property, they've received my claim but are yet to reply. As far as I'm concerned, they can pay up and then remove their Post Office equipment from my property, and stuff their 10 grand in the back pocket of their friends in the 'Spar' network to take over the business.

I've sent copies of all the correspondence to Vince Cable, Ed Milliband and my local MP, Chris Evans. These letters only went out last week and I'm awaiting replies from all of them.

My next step is to go to the press if I don't get a satisfactory reply within the time limit I specified in my original letter, to get as much publicity as possible for my predicament (and for all the others, such as yourself), in tandem with going to court to bring to light the underhand and probably illegal actions of POL, in alliance with NFSP, to dismantle the PO network as it stands today, and shaft as many SPMRs as necessary in the process. I'm pretty sure the EU approval of the 1.34 billion subsidy was not intended to fund a mass closure program.

I'll update here as things progress, and if you'd like to 'pm' me I'll provide you with my email details, and any other information you' d like. I would ask that you, and anyone else, when 'pm'ing me would provide me with your branch address and phone number, as well as an email address,
to enable me to contact you in future.

[subbie]

CDPete

The funding issue to which you refer is much worse than you think, the Postmasters Branch of the CWU have been on the case for a while. The Branch will be going public soon. Are you a member yet?

By the way the CWU does not get this kind of "cash" funding, it simply gets Union facilities for being a recognised Union, facilities means reps being on full time release from their job etc.

Subbie

[cdpete2004]

Hi subbie. I'm not in the nfsp, and I haven't joined the cwu either. I can't see that the cwu is fighting the tearing up of our contracts, can't see that they've fought for the subpostmaster members to get decent remuneration rates this year, can't see where they stood up for subpostmasters in the past few years when our remuneration was cut 25% since 2006. All I see is how the cwu is turning the 'NT' plan into a political football for its' own purposes, linking it to the future of Royal Mail, when it's nothing to do with RM's future. I've visited the cwu website, can't find anything about any cwu legal challenges to tearing up of contracts, or any call for clarification on what happens after March 2015. I'm open to persuasion that I'm wrong, that this cause is being fought by cwu (court papers being filed, lawyers and barristers retained, that sort of thing), then I'll join, maybe. All I see right now though is me, and others like me (such as newsubbie) being hung out to blow in the wind.

[subbie]

Because you choose not to join either Union, you will not know that selling on under your existing terms is not the closed door you seem to think it is. But you will need some help to push the door open.

Rushing to legal action will be a fools errand, your current contract makes it quite clear that you have no say in who takes on your appointment or under what conditions. You have no claim to the PO title, if it was as simple as that the CWU would have filed papers months ago.

This is a political football whether you like it or not.

The CWU are fighting to bring a halt to NT and to work out a sustainable way forward, are you reading the correct web site, the Postmasters Branch uses http://www.sub-postmasters.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not only are the Union taking a global stance against POL's one size fits all plan, but we also step in and help our members on an individual basis as and when NT impacts on them. That's why hundreds of Postmasters have joined already, because they know what POL are up to, and recognise that they will need some help if trouble strikes, so they have joined a Union that acts in an independent way, one that doesn't include taking POL's shilling. Who do you think put in those FOI's ?

Post 2015? There is no plan, this coalition will no longer exist, we could find ourselves back at square one, 5 years wasted along with obscene amounts of tax payers money.

Subbie

[cdpete2004]

subbie, the law is a wonderful thing, a living, ever changing and evolving thing. If laws were never challenged, if contracts were accepted at face value, if unreasonable or regressive working practices, victimisation of agents, contractors or employees and workers were only ever dealt with in back rooms, then unions would probably still be illegal today.

Had I the resources available to me that the cwu has, I think I would have, at the very least, sought an injunction at the High Court to request suspension of the Network Transformation program until a full judicial review could be requested. We're now a year into the three year plan, Over a thousand contracts signed, just HOW LONG do you think the cwu should wait before doing something, ANYTHING ? Almost to a man, our collection officers are disillusioned with the cwu leadership, having been through two or three strikes in the past seven years, and having achieved nothing. Do I need to ante up a portion of my hard earned income for cwu subscriptions for similar disappointment ? No thanks.

The cwu has done a great disservice to the Post Office Network with the headline put out in May 2011 : '9,000 Post Offcies to Close'. When faced with hysteria such as this, the great British Public, who really don't care for the most part where they collect their money, or post their parcels, as long as it's not too far out of their way, will take a counter-end at the local Spar in place of their existing post office, and consider themselves lucky that their post office wasn't one of those 9,000 closures trumpeted by the cwu.

I also believe that POL's exclusivity tie in with RM, and the monopoly position that gives RM within po branches is a disaster for the earnings potential of spmrs. We should be in a position to offer the public a range of courier services, and prices. The fact the cwu think this tie-in is a good thing, essential for the future of the po network, shows how little the cwu knows about free enterprise. With the latest price hikes and ridiculous sizing regime about to be introduced, ebayers and bulk posters are already deserting the po for couriers such as myhermes and yodel. We can only stand back and wave them bon voyage. Brilliant ! And I'm supposed to be grateful I have the option of joining this organisation ?

Finally, I do have one question, are you telling me that Ms. Aspinall is a cwu member, and that her FOI requests are on behalf of cwu ?

[subbie]

Oh dear, what a rant.

"In the cellar was a tunnel scarcely ten yards long, that had
taken him a week to dig. I could have dug that much in a day, and I suddenly had
my first inkling of the gulf between his dreams and his powers."

Excerpt from "A brave new world" courtesy of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.

Moving on.

Subbie

[cdpete2004]

'BFO', in response to your question:

'I wonder how so much public money can be spent on a largely cosmetic exercise when important public services are facing severe budget reductions'. (I think your question was probably rhetorical BFO, but below please find the government answer).

I have received a letter from Jo Swinson, mp for the post office, that states '...the network transformation plan was developed by pol with substantial input from the nfsp. Government had no role in the process...'

Now doesn't hat put a whole new spin on things ? If govt has no supervisory role in overseeing its' operations, and it has no shareholders to answer to, is it any wonder that pol is acting like a dictatorship rather than a publicly owned body ?

I have to assume that govt did not know of the £340,000 paid to nfsp, and if govt. had no role in the process, who provided the legal framework and advice to pol for the legallity of the transformation plan, and the shredding of our existing contracts when we decide to leave the network ?

Hello cwu ? Interested in taking any REAL ACTION yet, or does the million pounds you receive per year preclude you too, like the nfsp, from making too many waves ?

Subbie, if you're out there, do me a favour ? Can you contact your ex-nfsp friend and find out how many members nfsp actually has, or had, when he was last 'in the club' ? and could you find out how many of those were actually Fully Paid Up members, as opposed to those who get free membership by virtue of their low remuneration ? (PS I now consider myself an 'associate' member of cwu, as the million pounds a year cwu gets is taxpayer money, and I am after all, a taxpayer). This is one piece of info I could really use, but can't seem to find anywhere. Thanks in advance. Pete.

[The BFO]

The way to deal with it is for you, and many of your Subpostmaster colleagues, to join the CWU, and Crown Office staff, and 'vote with your feet' as I did yesterday afternoon.

[subbie]

CD Pete

The CWU receives absolutely no funding from PO Ltd for its role in representing Sub Postmasters.

Jo Swinson is wrong the Shareholder Executive (part of the Gov) worked with POL on the NT 5 year strategic plan, and signed it off, they funded the bloody thing. its outrageous for a Minister to deny participation in POL's plan. But there again she is Lib Dem :vcfo

The CWU is dealing with the NFSP, in our own way, the path to gaining recognition will be a long one but we will get there. The NFSP doesnt have long left to live, as a union

The NFSP does not give free membership, except for the first 6 months of joining cos they are desperate, their membership total stands at 6903 as of end of March 2013, but they tend to include multiple owned PO's by the same individual as more than one member, so you don't really know the accurate figure.

Subbie

[cdpete2004]

Thanks for the info subbie, I hadn't been able to find the nfsp membership numbers anywhere.

(By the way, I should have said cwu receives 1 million from RM, not POL, sorry, my ommission there).

Trouble is subbie, nfsp is doing nothing, but taking the cash and extolling upon its' membership the virtues of working 24/7, while cwu, as you say, are embarking on a 'long path', but tell me, if someone doesn't legally challenge the nt program, in another 23 months, those of us who are left in the network will have no business left to sell worth a s**t, they are tearing up our contracts, don't you see that ?

Oh I know how our current contracts are worded, but the fact is pol are rendering existing contracts null and void into perpetuity, regardless of need, or any future program of closures or modernisation or transformation or anything else, it's not going to be decided on an individual basis, ALL contracts will be null and void when spmr decides to leave the network. If the plan progresses any further without a challenge, it will be too late, pol will have achieved critical mass and there will be nothing to debate.

We have a govt. that denies a role in the program, only maybe they did have a role, we have pol that makes the rules up as they go along - I was also informed in the Swinson letter that pol would be sending field change advisors to branches that had their business on the market, but not secured a buyer, at the end of June 2013 to '...discuss all options open to them and what pol can do to support them in securing a buyer for their busines as quickly as possible...'

Was THAT mentioned in the original paperwork and timetable we received ? Just as the deadline was extended (on December 21), yet not conveyed to field change advisors until February, this is being made up as it goes along. How can anyone base a decision on their future without the full facts being presented at the start ? It's a travesty, which if pol get away with, then any other franchise company in the UK (and yes, I know it's a franchise, or an agency, or something else, whatever pol decides to call it, only it's not really anything unless pol thinks it is) will be able to close any franchisee down at any time for any reason. Who'd invest in any franchise business then ? This issue can be made bigger, if handled the right way, through the courts. NT needs to be stopped, or at least, more specifically, the destruction of our contracts, and our investments, must be stopped . The public doesn't care, they just hear 'post office to open 24 hours a day 7 days a week', the nfsp has been bought off, the cwu is, er, contemplating, is it ? If someone doesn't do something and soon, then it's over.

If I do have to go to court, I hope at least then the publicity the case receives will encourage other spmrs to come forward and publicly voice their own concerns, maybe the action could be fought as a group, whatever happens, I'm not going to sit by and do nothing. I don't have unlimited funds, and am not a font of legal knowledge, I do have faith in the legal system though and have experienced enough of pol to know that their arrogance has probably led to them deciding the law is whatever they decide it is. Maybe they are right. We'll see.

The alternative for me ? To work until I die; sell the business at a huge loss - if it can be sold at all now; or take a big loss, get stuck with a property fit for nothing in this area in this economy, and watch pol 'gift' my business to a Spar or a Londis or some local retail vulture just waiting for me to take the pittance on offer from pol.

Not much of a choice, is it ?