Select Committee on Business and Enterprise Sixth Report


1  Introduction


1. Earlier this year we looked at the post office closures under the "Network Change Programme", which is intended to make the network more sustainable by closing up to 2,500 post offices.[1] Our aim was to examine how the programme was being implemented, and if necessary, to make proposals for its improvement. Responses to the Committee's Third Report on the Post Office Closure Programme from Postwatch, the Government and Post Office Ltd are published as appendices to this Report. We are also publishing several letters from BERR and Post Office Ltd responding to specific questions from the Committee and evidence relating to this and our earlier Report.

2. The Network Change Programme is progressing fast; our earlier Report suggested ways in which it could be improved. Some welcome changes have been made. The process could and should be improved still further, for example, by replacing the six-week consultation with the standard twelve-week period, but radical change is now unlikely, even though the closure programme is a matter of considerable public concern. People regularly petition the House against local proposals. When our original Report was published we had considered 51 such petitions; since then another 26 have been referred to us. Even after our original inquiry had reported, we received further letters and memoranda. Between publication of the Report and receipt of the Government response our chairman took part in the radio programme You and Yours. Callers to that programme made it quite clear how much they valued local post office services.

3. This Report considers the responses we have received. We also consider the future of the network. Although we reluctantly accept that some rationalisation of the current network is necessary, the post office network provides services of general economic interest across the entire United Kingdom. However, as all parties recognise, it is not simply a commercial entity. The "urban reinvention" closure programme was swiftly followed by the current Network Change Programme: we do not want to see further shrinkage. It is time for a strategic examination of the relationship between the post office network and Royal Mail Group. Postcomm has gone so far as to recommend that Post Office Ltd and Royal Mail be demerged.[2] At this stage, it is impossible to assess whether or not that is a practicable solution. Before considering whether the two entities should be separated, there needs to be detailed and public consideration of the commercial arrangements between them, and the interplay between the post office network and the universal service obligation.


1   Third Report of Session 2007-08, Post Office Closure Programme, HC 292-I Back

2   See, for example, Postcomm, The Independent Review of the postal services sector. Second submission by Postcomm, the industry regulator, May 2008 Back


 
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