Petitions
Monday 14 July 2008
Observations
Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
Post Office Closures (Cumbria)
The Petition of supporters of Hayton Post Office in Penrith and the Border constituency,
Declares that Post Offices are a vital part of the social fabric of the local community and must be preserved; notes that the Government is continually reducing Post Office business which should and could continue to be done by Post Offices thus keeping them viable. The Petitioners believe that mobile Post Offices cannot be a substitute for the village shop/Post Office which is often the hub of social and community life and the centre of informal networking which binds a village together.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to instruct Post Office Ltd to retain Hayton Post Office.
And the Petitioners remain, etc. —[Presented by David Maclean , Official Report, Tuesday 20 May 2008; Vol. 467, c. 291 .][P000197]
Observations from the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform :
The Government fully recognises the important social and economic role of post offices, particularly in rural and deprived urban communities. That is why it is determined to maintain a national post office network, allowing people to have reasonable access across the whole country, and why it has put in place a new policy and financial framework to achieve this. The Government has been investing substantial sums in the post office network, totalling £2 billion since 1999. That has, for example, paid for a computer link-up for every post office, as well as support for non-commercial branches since 2003.
In its response to the consultation on the Post Office network, the Government announced, in May 2007, confirmation of its decision to extend funding of up to £1.7 billion to 2011, including provision of a £150 million Social Network Payment to support the post office network up to this time. The Government strategy includes provision for 2,500 compensated closures and 500 new Outreach services.
The 500 new and innovative Outreach locations, operated in partnership with other local services (such as pubs, village halls, churches and mobile post offices), will mitigate closures (primarily in smaller and more remote communities). Post Office Limited (POL) announced on 9 April that it will extend Outreach trials into urban areas which, if successful, could mean additional Outreach branches over and above the 500 originally planned. Nevertheless, there will need to be up to 2,500 compensated post office closures within the defined access criteria.
POL is responsible for implementing the network change programme at a local level. It is developing a rolling programme of some 50 local consultations on
detailed area plans, based on groups of Parliamentary constituencies. The first area plans went out to local consultation on 2 October last year and these plans will continue to be rolled out at regular intervals until August, with the whole programme scheduled to take around 15 months to complete. The consultation period for Cumbria, which includes the Penrith and Border constituency, has finished. POL has published its Area Plan Decision Booklet available on its website at: www.postoffice.co.uk/networkchange.
Having considered all representations and the criteria for the network change programme, POL has confirmed that Hayton Post Office is to close.
POL develops its proposals with the participation of sub-postmasters, local authorities and the consumer watchdog, Postwatch. It takes into account the numeric access criteria set out by Government, as well as local factors affecting ease of access, such as local geography (rivers, mountains etc), when drawing up its implementation plans. POL is also required to consider the availability of public transport and alternative access to key post office services, local demographics and the impact on the local economy. Local consultations provide the opportunity to raise any specific concerns over particular proposals.
The Government does not have a role in proposals or decisions for individual post offices. No decisions on individual Post Offices are taken until after local consultations. Those decisions are made by POL, in light of the responses to the consultation, while subject to a four-stage appeals process involving Postwatch. The Review Process for closure decisions after the public consultation process applies where Postwatch shows that, for an individual branch:
POL has not given due consideration to material evidence received during the public consultation in coming to its decision or;
evidence emerges from the consultation that the proposal for the branch does not meet the Government's policy requirements.
The aim of the further review process is for POL and Postwatch to reach an agreed way forward by bilateral review, with 3 stages available at increasing levels of seniority. An addition to the review process in November provided for very difficult cases which remain unresolved after stage 3. At this stage, the Chairman of the Royal Mail Group will review the issues and reach a final decision.
Health
Nurses' Training (Funding)
The Humble Petition of Mrs R Downey editor of Nursing Times magazine and others of like disposition,
That since 2005-06 Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) have diverted more than £5000 million away from Multi-Professional Education and Training (MPET) budgets to pay for other services and plug financial deficits. Both mandatory and non-mandatory post-registration nurse training have been severely reduced across the country as a result. The situation continues, putting nurses' career progression and patient safety at risk.
The Nursing Times' Time Out For Training campaign urges the Prime Minister to ring-fence post-registration nurse training funds to stop SHAs spending the money elsewhere.
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House urges the Secretary of State for Health to ring-fence Multi-Professional Education and Training (MPET) funding given to Strategic Health Authorities which is used in part to provide nurse training, and to support the Nursing Times' Time Out For Training campaign.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c. —[Presented by Dr. Howard Stoate , Official Report, 25 June 2008; Vol. 478, c. 464 .] [P000222]
Observations from the Secretary of State for Health:
The role of the Department of Health is to focus on outputs and accountability rather than on ensuring a fixed amount of money is spent for a particular purpose regardless of local authorities.
Although the Multi-Professional Education and Training budget is not ring-fenced, a service level agreement is issued with the allocations to ensure that Strategic Health Authorities are held to account for training support for healthcare students and the NHS workforce. In the longer-term ring-fencing is inefficient and has been ineffective in the past.
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