Letter from Naomi Nardi, Bridestowe Post
Office & Riverside Stores
POST OFFICE NETWORK CHANGE, FINANCIAL VIABILITY
OF OUTREACHES WITH SPECIAL REGARD TO THE PARTNER MODEL
I have read the BERR Committee reports on the
Post Office Network Change programme with great interest. The
BERR Committee seems to be the only body that might hold any sway
over the actions of the Post Office throughout this reduction
in the network.
I appreciate that the Committee can not take
up any individual case but, with Network Change having reached
Devon, we find ourselves facing a potential major flaw in the
Programme.
That is: There has been no formal analysis or
reporting on the financial viability and expected long-term survival
of POL's much-vaunted Outreach Services.
I have searched the Internet and found nothing.
I have asked the Rural Support Service, Community Council of Devon
and Postwatch, none of who are aware of any analysis.
I understand that even the NFSP has concerns
about the financial package for Core Sub-Postmasters beyond the
initial bonus year.
I also understand that Partner Outreaches have
been identified as a serious concern.
Given that Outreaches are such a major element
of the current programme, I would respectfully urge the Committee
to examine the detail of these business models as a matter of
urgency, before it is too late to prevent irreversible damage
to services in the most vulnerable parts of the country.
The impression given to the public is that Outreach
is positively supported by POL and that implies some security
for the future—in finance—not just the supply of signs
and equipment.
That there are no guarantees beyond the first
12 months begs the question for the communities with Outreaches
as to whether any service will exist beyond that initial year.
Partner Outreach is the least sustainable of
the Outreach Models relying on the work of a third party, who
shares payment from POL with a Core Sub-Postmaster, to deliver
services.
It can be viewed as exploitative of the Partner,
especially where it is used to supplant a fixed-counter service
in the same premises as a Sub Post Office that is being closed
and relies for its uptake upon that ex-sub-postmasters desperation
to retain footfall for the survival of the remainder of their
business. That is financial coercion.
POL dictates operational terms and demands that
postal services in Partner premises should be available for the
entire opening hours of the retail side, often increasing the
burden at the same time as reducing funding drastically. That
is an abuse of a dominant position.
Perversely, POL does not involve itself in Partner's
payment terms. That is subject to individual negotiation with
the Core Sub-postmaster, which means payments will vary across
Outreaches for the same work and are open to abuse.
Whilst some Core Sub-Postmasters will no doubt
offer fair deals, others may not. The finance package is not transparent
nor has POL considered there to be any need to ensure that Partners
get reasonable recompense for the work, responsibility and security
of the money and mails that they are handling.
I understand that NFSP has negotiated with POL
on behalf of the Core Sub-postmasters but apparently it has abandoned
those losing their post offices to have to try and negotiate new
terms by themselves—at a time when their livelihoods are
being dismantled.
If those who have just lost their fixed counter
post office use their compensation payment to subsidise the outreach
it would work perhaps for two or three years. By the time the
money ran out and their businesses fail, the closure of those
offices would no longer be attributed to Network Change.
Partner Outreaches are onerous, inequitable
and parasitic—doomed to failure where there is virtually
no money in them for those actually doing the work.
It demeans a business owned by Government to
ill-use and exploit in this way.
There should be serious concern that if none
of the Outreach models has a genuinely robust structure, then
the 500 communities having them imposed now and those who will
have them imposed in the future, will find themselves losing Postal
services altogether, as well as the retail operations that went
with them, when they fail.
Thank you for your time. I do hope that the
question of the viability of Outreaches is one that the Committee
feels is worth investigating.
30 May 2008
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