Written evidence from James Hall
Until I retired, I was the Operation Controller in
the Scottish Region and the operation and future of all our services,
particularly in rural areas, were some of my main concerns. I
therefore believe that I can reasonably submit myself as an expert
contributor, with a wide understanding of all the factors which
need to be met to retain a good, acceptable service all round.
I have set out my thoughts in accordance with the list you issued.
DEMAND AND
HOW IT
MIGHT VARY
The postal service ie the Letter and parcel services
jointly, can reasonably be classed as essential—much immediate
material, letters and parcels, is conveyed, while in rural areas,
mail is the prime contact with the rest of the country.
There will always be changes, as there have been
since its inception, but competition, such as telegraph, telegrams,
the telephone, telex and mobile phones have been overcome. The
service is flexible and can, as before, always introduce change
as needed. The biggest danger now starting to be mentioned would
be loss of Universal Pricing, which would escalate prices in the
remote parts to the extent of virtually killing the postal service
and with it a great swathe of the rural population. The wrongly
structured, wrongly introduced "competition" is the
real danger in this respect as at present there is no way that
Royal Mail can avoid making a huge loss with this mail. However,
if this can be corrected, as it MUST, then traffic should not
vary greatly, especially if RM markets its wares as it now appears
to be doing brightly under its new head.
HOW RANGE
OF SERVICES
COULD BE
EXPANDED
The Luff Committee made a number of excellent suggestions
in respect of Counter services. Regrettably, however, the recommendation
made that ALL government departments should urgently seek and
introduce services using the Post Office to meet their needs,
does not seem to have produced much response. For instance, National
Savings display marketing literature at all PO counters but never
mention this in the hugely expensive advertising they use on Classic
FM radio station. This sensible Committee recommendation MUST
be chased up and action taken.
There are indeed many government services which could
be offered but the government had already moved some away eg Television
Licences; this plus the associated enquiry work to find non-payers
was a good source of funds.
There are certainly many services which could be
operated for local authorities, eg collection of rents and Council
Tax, especially in country areas.
There are already several elements of banking, including
a PO Bank, run by Bank of Ireland. Is this really the best we
can do, given the financial problems in Ireland at present? When
I was a lad, the PO Savings Bank was a very popular way of teaching
children about money. One's own PO Savings Bank book was greatly
used and we learned a lot about money. This could be resurrected.
Much of the confusion about how to help seems to
come from a misunderstanding about the real purpose of the Counter
Network. It is not there as a chain of shops—its prime task
is to be the point of access for the public to the two mail services.
It is for this reason that it has for a long time been directly
a part of the single PO structure, its costs absorbed in the mail
receipts. It is to the credit of past generations of postal managers
that they set out, and succeeded, to attract, as you are trying
to do now, subsidiary services which could help meet the costs
of this network, so highly praised in the Luff Report.
So far as the mail services are concerned, it now
appears that the new management are alive to the need to maintain
good levels of traffic and a number of new ideas are now being
introduced.
One service, now floundering, with which I was closely
involved—it was almost completely confined to Scotland—was
the Postbus service in rural areas. I was in at the beginning
of this conversion of our delivery vehicles into passenger carriers.
These ranged from mini-buses to small estate cars and four-wheel
drive cars. They were very popular locally, but also more widely
spread—a considerable number of visitors visited places
where they operated and were charmed by the really wonderful scenery
they could see from the bus which visited so many places off the
beaten track. Many drivers built up a range of tales about their
area—I know they were not always strictly accurate…!
The finances of these services were sound. For any
service to be upgraded, we simply costed the van service and the
replacement bus service and asked the Council to pay the difference.
They each had a commitment to provide transport in all areas and
were glad to join with us. At one time, there were nearly 200
Postbuses running in Scotland. Since the division of the services,
the RM people have been less enamoured with this service and a
high percentage have now been ceased despite much local complaint.
We also introduced a local service which we called
"Rural Parcels". This carried items which were not normal
parcels. Local shops could send unsealed boxes of groceries, TV
sets were taken to a local engineer for repair, similarly shoes,
etc. There was no set price, but we set out a list of acceptable
charges and let local managers, then called Head Postmasters,
to fix a price similar to our suggestion. We made regular visits
to every "Head Post Office" for general liaison and
audit and the income form this service was checked (a matter of
a few minutes)-- we never found any significant deviation from
our suggested pricing. In some places this service was a godsend.
In Lewis where the famous tweed is woven in local cottages, we
replaced the van which made weekly visits to the weavers with
this service on a daily basis. This greatly speeded up the work
and proved to be a major factor in helping to save the product
which was then in a bit of financial difficulty. Thought might
be given to restoring this service, which was quickly withdrawn
on the introduction of the bean-counters of the present regime.
ROLE OF
SUB -OFFICES
I have really covered this above. A Counter should
be located wherever there are sufficient people needing the service
for information about mails. Also, now, since pension payments
are widely collected at Post Offices, there should be an office
wherever this traffic justifies it.
For mails, a sub-office should exist to locate one
or more postmen(full- or part-time), when the amount of mail—letters
and parcels—justifies them. The sub-postmaster will be in
charge of them.
UNIVERSAL SERVICE
I have already mentioned the dire effect of any reduction
or removal of the Universal postage rate. The cost of letters
and parcels would soar to a level totally outside the means of
the population, except, perhaps any wealthy people residing in
large Lodges or mansions. We could close the Post Office entirely
then, to the great detriment of the entire population. The effect
would be worse than the much-maligned Highland Clearances. I cannot
imagine that any government would be so stupid as to cease this
essential factor.
COMMUNITY OR
MUTUALLY-OWNED
POST OFFICE
This thought goes back to the recognition of the
essential organisation of the Post Office as a whole. Concerning
sub-offices alone, then I can assure you that it would have absolutely
no effect whatever, since we have had sub-post offices of that
very sort in many places, usually tiny villages or clachans. There
have also been other venues eg in visitable stately homes where
the shop is a sub-office, or in police stations when there has
been no candidate for a postmaster vacancy. This is not a serious
problem.
PARCELFORCE IN
REMOTE AREAS.
Again, this comes back to the organisation of the
PO as a whole. The separation of Parcels from Letters was a poor
and costly move. Before that split, the two services ran in parallel
with maximum use of common accommodation, transport and staff.
So the simple answer to this query is simply that parcels should
be sent, along with letters to a sub-office to be delivered by
the same van (or Postbus?). This is not a major problem.
IMPACT OF
POSTAL SERVICES
IN SCOTLAND
ON BUSINESS
The short answer is "exactly the same as it
has been in England." Although clock-times might vary eg
some mail from Devon might be delivered later in Aberdeen than
in Truro, users soon adapt to the timetable as it affects them.
WIDER ECONOMIC
IMPACT OF
POSTAL SERVICE
ON RURAL
AREAS.
There probably is a greater impact on rural areas
in Scotland than in some other parts of the UK, because of the
distances involved, a lot of mail does not arrive until 12-24
hours after a similar in the Home Counties for example. It is
the case, however, that people have become used to this difference
and adapt their practices, indeed their whole life-style, to the
difference, of which they are all very well aware.
13 December 2010
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