Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
POSTWATCH
29 JANUARY 2008
Q60 Chairman: Are you happy that
the programme is taking account of future population growth in
areas where substantial new house building may be planned?
Mr Webber: Post Office Limited
have written to local authorities. Local authorities obviously
know what it is going on. They have been invited, and we have
reinforced the message, that local authorities need to make Post
Office Limited aware of future plans. I think in general they
are doing that.
Q61 Chairman: Postcomm say while
only 3% of the network, Crown offices account for £70 million
of the £90 million losses last year. Does that not suggest
that the closure programme is aiming at the wrong target?
Mr Webber: It seems to me that
is a slightly misleading statistic, in that it does not take account
of the subsidy which is being paid. The total losses of the network,
leaving the subsidy out of it, are about £175 million, as
I understand it, so it is £70 million out of £175 million,
which is about 40%, admittedly a very high proportion. Although
it is only 3% of the network, I think it is responsible for the
best part of 20% of the business, because Crown offices tend to
be the larger offices. That said, it is not an either/or programme.
Both Crown offices and the sub-postmaster network need to be put
in order.
Q62 Chairman: You are happy about
the balance. You have done a very interesting survey of public
opinion, and you have set it out in your evidence to us. I do
not want to go through it in detail, but the one that jumped off
the page at me, and it really was flowing from the National Federation's
evidence just now, is that, in areas where closure programmes
are happening, only 18% of people said they were aware of a consultation
taking place. That really worries me.
Mr Webber: It really worried us
as well. It does worry us and I will come back to why it worried
us and what we are doing about it. But on average, only about
9% of the population are in fact affected by the closure programme;
91% of the population on average will have no change in their
local post office. One might argue that as long as those 9% are
aware of the programme it is not so important that the other 91%
are not. Nonetheless, obviously this is a programme of great concern
to the population as a whole. Well over 60% of the population
as a whole are aware of the closure programme and, in that context,
it is really rather disturbing that less than 20% of the population
knew that there was a consultation going on in their area. We
have done what we can, but we are a small organisation with limited
reach. Post Office Limited is a very large organisation with much
greater reach. We have been working with them, and certainly seeking
to persuade them to make sure that there are good comprehensive
press notices provided at the start of the consultation, because
we have found that the best way of getting the message across
is free media: the local media; local radio; and local press publicising
that. That has not always happened as comprehensively as we would
like. We need a routine of press notices issued at the start.
We need constant reinforcement during the six-week consultation
period. The message is getting through to Post Office Limited
but things are not moving quite as fast we would have liked, so
far.
Q63 Chairman: Are there any other
issues that flowed from your meeting the Post Office formally
in mid-January to discuss the outcomes? Was there any else that
flowed from that, to which the Post Office have responded?
Mr Webber: This was a separate
piece of research (but conducted at the same time) on the post
office call centre. We found it was really not up-to-scratch.
If people were phoning the post office call centre they were not
always getting the accurate information they needed in terms of
whom they needed to write to and how they needed to write. They
were not getting information about email addresses to give their
comments to. Post Office Limited have taken those points on board
and are working on them to put them right. There is one outstanding
point which we are still in discussion with Post Office Limited
about and that is, at the moment people cannot make their comments
via the call centre. Post Office Limited accept only written comments,
except if people say that they are unable to provide written comments,
if there is some particular reason why they are unable. We think
that is unfair because there are a lot of people who just prefer
not to and find it easier to make comments over the phone. We
think Post Office Limited should accept comments over the phone.
So far we do not have agreement on that, but we are still working
on it.
Q64 Chairman: The other thing that
worries me, there is a six-week consultation—and the Committee
thinks it is fundamentally flawed for a variety of reasons: it
may suit the Post Office but it does not suit communities—and
I notice your survey said that of those who stated they intended
to participate in a consultation, the majority said they would
contact their MP or a councillor and they put Post Office Limited
third in the list of who they would contact. MPs have offices
and staff so we can get that information through quite quickly;
councillors might find it much more difficult to pass that information
on with resources available to them. Is that a matter of concern?
Mr Webber: It is a matter of concern,
although it should be possible to get that information conveyed.
I hope Post Office Limited will take as much notice of information
which reaches them via Members and via local councillors as they
would take of information which reaches them directly from customers.
Q65 Chairman: Finally from me, your
objectivity, your impartiality in the process, is there a danger
as you get weary of all these closure plans you get co-opted into
the process, become part of it and lose the freshness that you
brought at the beginning of the process? I speak as someone whose
consultation would be right at the very end.
Mr Webber: I think not. Given
that much of our work in this respect is focussed regionally,
we have six English regions and offices in each of the three nations.
Although each of them is kept very busy, it tends not to be continuous.
For our central teams that is certainly so; but so far they are
looking remarkably fresh even so. For the regional offices there
is variation of pressure.
Q66 Mr Bailey: The 11-week pre-consultation
process, private consultation with POL, is not your involvement
unnecessarily opaque? In your opening remarks you said you do
not have a cosy relationship, but do you not think the privacy
of this and lack of transparency conveys a public impression that
there is a certain cosiness?
Mr Webber: I can see there is
a presentational problem but I think it is actually necessarily
opaque. What we can do, and will be doing, and probably in our
next report we will give details of this, is indicate in general
terms, without naming individual branches, what has happened in
each area plan, the number of proposals which have been changed
and so on as a result of our intervention. For the sort of reasons
that George Thomson was pointing out, there is a need for confidentiality
at that stage. It is important to be able to substitute post offices,
to discuss why a particular post office should not close without
the glare of publicity being on it. Although it is difficult to
explain and demonstrate to the public why that should be so, I
think it is fairly clear that those sorts of "without prejudice"
discussions, which I accept are behind closed doors, are a necessary
part of the process.
Q67 Mr Bailey: If there was not this
private pre-consultation period, in effect the length of time
for public consultation could be extended and you could be involved
in that. The results of your participation would be rather more
visible. Do you not think that is a better way of doing it?
Mr Webber: If it were an either/or
then I would agree with you. The decision to have a six-week public
consultation was taken regardless of the pre-consultation period,
and it was a Government decision; not our decision; and not the
decision of Post Office Limited. It is something possibly to take
up with the Minister. Given that there is only a six-week public
consultation period, it becomes all the more important to have
a very substantial pre-consultation period for two reasons at
least: one, so that the plan which reaches the public is as good
as it can be without that direct public input; and, secondly,
so that we at Postwatch, local authorities and MPs are as fully
informed as we can be at the start of that public consultation
period; so we can ensure that the public input is as high quality
as possible.
Q68 Mr Bailey: Taking up the issue
of commercial confidentiality which I believe Postwatch feels
could be more open certainly in terms of the POL position, and
certainly I can see the argument why individual sub-post offices
would not want this detail being publicly conveyed, however those
elements of the funding package that are POL and can be stated
in general terms to give a greater understanding to the public
of the level of cost involved, why have they not really conveyed
that? What is your feeling?
Mr Webber: I do not know the answer
to that. It possibly is one of the symptoms of what I was saying
is the major concern from our point of view, that Post Office
Limited are not as happy on the issues of communicating with their
customers so far as they have been on the mechanics of the process.
There is scope for more openness. As you say, there is no reason
why those sorts of general matters should not be made public.
I think some of them have been but they are pretty complicated—there
is no doubt about that. There is a large variety of contractual
arrangements with sub-postmasters. That said, there is scope I
think to educate the public on this in a way that is not necessarily
happening at the moment.
Q69 Mr Bailey: Certainly on the basis
of the publicity surrounding the closure of some post offices
shall we say the broad details of those extra costs, which I am
sure could have been conveyed by POL, have not been conveyed?
Mr Webber: I would hope that their
attitude would be that everything which there is no reason to
keep secret, should be disclosed.
Q70 Roger Berry: Local authorities
have complained that they are not sufficiently involved in the
pre-consultation process. Do you believe that is correct?
Mr Webber: At the start that was
absolutely the case, and we pushed hard with POL to be more open
with local authorities. Obviously local authorities need to respect
the confidentiality of the information they are given; but provided
they are willing to do that (and in some cases they are not, and
if they say explicitly they do not want to keep confidences that
is fine, but they then cannot expect to be given confidential
information) and provided they agree before the public consultation
that matters should be kept confidential, they should be fully
involved and we have no argument about when that should happen.
We are quite happy for that to happen early on in the pre-consultation
process. Certainly the situation is better now than it was at
the start of the programme, even if it is not yet quite as good
as it might be.
Q71 Roger Berry: There are some local
authorities passing resolutions proposing closures contrary to
the view of the National Federation, contrary to the views of
Postwatch and so on. Are these local authorities doing that publicly?
Are they privately engaged in serious discussion about the way
forward, or are they opting out of providing information? What
is the response that you are getting?
Mr Webber: I think there is a
mixture. In some cases there is a genuine opposition in principle
to the whole idea of post office closures, and they are not having
anything very much to do with the programme at all. In other cases
there are public positions being taken which might not necessarily
be 100% backed by the private position. I can understand both
approaches—they are both understandable.
Q72 Roger Berry: Do you think there
is an argument that as an unelected quango, and I say that in
the nicest possible way, Postwatch has far more active involvement
in this process than elected representatives, both locally and
nationally elected representatives?
Mr Webber: Probably that is true.
Whether that is a good thing or bad thing is not for me to say.
Q73 Roger Berry: Oh, go on!
Mr Webber: I hope we are discharging
our responsibility ably and with expertise and with genuine concern
for the interests of consumers; in which case I hope we are acting
on behalf of the community as much as any elected organisation
or authority would do.
Q74 Roger Berry: The pre-consultation
involvement of local councillors, is it about anything more than
providing information; or is it about do they have the opportunity
of making serious input into the options available for local communities?
Mr Webber: The very early invitation
for information is just that. Local authorities are being invited
to provide information about planning issues, if there are developments
afoot et cetera. As the pre-consultation period proceeds more
and more local authorities are being invited to give qualitative
views on what is proposed; and obviously when it reaches the public
consultation phase then local authorities are full participants.
Q75 Mr Hoyle: Just to follow on from
that, this is about local representation because we are the elected
members yet somehow you are the overseer, and some people say
you are very, very cosy. The fact that you seemed to have rolled
over and accepted in my area five closures, three of which want
to go and two that do not, the two that do not were the post offices
that should have remained open after the last event we went through.
I saw closures previously and the justification was that these
two post offices were the post offices people had got to use.
Now what we are saying is, "Ah, well, we didn't really mean
that because we're going to close them now". Do you find
that acceptable, because you went along with it in both cases?
Mr Webber: It is a different programme
is the first point, Mr Hoyle.
Q76 Mr Hoyle: So we have changed
the rules so it does not count?
Mr Webber: The Government have
said that 2,500 post offices are to close. We could either have
said, "That's wrong in principle" and stayed on the
sidelines and sulked, or just shouted; or we could have said that
we're going to work hard with Post Office Limited, but as an entirely
separate organisation.
Q77 Mr Hoyle: What have you done
for Chorley and the people of Chorley?
Mr Webber: I am afraid I cannot
answer about an individual constituency.
Q78 Mr Hoyle: If you could let us
know I would be grateful.
Mr Webber: I will write to the
Chairman. I will be very happy to do so.
Q79 Mr Hoyle: I would like you to
write to me as well as the elected member. We do have some thoughts
and opinions on it.
Mr Webber: Certainly I shall do
that as well. We are only in week two of the public consultation
for the area your constituency is part of, I believe. Obviously
all bets are still on in terms of that.
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