Select Committee on Trade and Industry Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 8

Memorandum by Help the Aged

  We understand that your Committee is undertaking a brief follow-up inquiry into Royal Mail Group. Help the Aged would like to take this opportunity to make a number of comments in relation to your inquiry.

  1.  The Post Office Card Account (POCA) was launched in April 2003 as an alternative for those who could not or did not want to open a basic bank account when direct payments of benefits were introduced. In some ways, the POCA has been a major success and there are now around 4.3 million people receiving their benefits via a Post Office Card Account, of which approximately 40% are pensioners.

  2.  Help the Aged are very concerned about the impact the closure of the POCA will have on the post office network. The move towards direct payments of benefits removed more than £400 million of annual revenue from the post office network. This has played a part in the resulting closure of 2,500 post offices.

  3.  The POCA contract is worth around £1 billion to post offices between 2003 and 2010. The decision to end POCA will have a real detrimental impact on the long term planning for post offices across the country. Further Post Office closures will mean that vulnerable older people will have to increasingly rely on ATMs, some of which charge for access to cash.

  4.  The Post Office faces a number of other significant challenges, of which the end of POCA may be one of the most significant. The other threats include:

    —    The doubt over the future of the rural subsidy for the post office.

    —    Adam Crozier, Chief Executive of Royal Mail arguing that that he could meet the criteria set down for a full distribution of post offices with roughly 4,000 sub-post offices (there are presently in excess of 14,000).

    —    The proposal to set up 70 high street offices to vet and interview applicants for passports.

    —    The Post Office potentially losing its right to issue TV licenses.

    —    The Home Office decision not to allow post offices to be involved in delivering passport services.

    —    The Department for Transport not allowing some post offices to issue driving licences.

    —    Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency advertising to purchase of car registration online, with no mention that it can still be bought at post offices.

  We hope that you will consider these issues during your evidence sessions. We would welcome the opportunity to give oral evidence.

20 June 2006





 
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