Save our Post Offices Campaign
Posted by David Howarth, MP for Cambridge, at 18:23, Fri 16 March 2007:
Last week the Department of Trade and Industry’s consultation on proposals to close 2500 post offices around the UK closed. I am concerned that the Government’s plans seem to be more about managing the decline of the post office network than about trying to reinvigorate it.
We need to give the sub-post-masters and mistresses the freedom to introduce new and innovative services that could improve financial viability. At the moment post offices are bound by strict franchise agreements that prevent innovation. So far the Government’s proposals make no mention of the problem. In my response to the consultation, I asked for a thorough review of the post office franchise agreement to see how it can be improved to help post offices to flourish.
Another issue raised by those who wrote to me was that the post office network is not primarily a business, but instead fulfils an important social function. I thoroughly agree and have pointed this out to the Department of Trade and Industry. This is why we cannot allow the post office network to decay. Its services are important to vulnerable people in Cambridge, and in many other areas across the country.
The Government’s proposals suggest that 95% of people living in urban areas should be within 1 mile of their nearest post office but for some of our least mobile residents travelling one mile can be difficult. Ability to access a post office by public transport must be a key consideration.
The Government closed many post offices using rules it now recognises were wrong. Before it closes any more post offices, it should reopen those that should not have been closed in the first place.
Postwatch, the postal services watchdog, expects the Government to announce the results of the consultation at the end of this month. I will be continuing to work in Parliament to protect Cambridge’s remaining post offices.
Kind regards
David Howarth
MP for Cambridge
Comments
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Posted by Nick Tuson, 01:11, Sat 17 March 2007: (Is this post abusive?) #
In general the carving up of public services to generate private business - eg parcel deliveries, mail carrying in general, utilities, Group 4 jails.. is retrograde and does not have a social agenda at all, but rather an economic one. It returns us to the Dickensian society so beloved of Thatcher and many fuzzy-thinking proponents of a minimal State. We expect that the businesses that benefit may contribute to party funds (directly or indirectly) and that this is one of the real reasons. Besides, the Chancellor has a bad balance of payments problem and tends to try to generate money by selling state assets (and I am not sure he is wrong, since revenue must be had: it is too easy to pretend that the UK does not have to pay its way).
I cannot see that pointing out the loss of a valuable public service will impact on the changes because the argument - although true - is not related to the purpose of the changes. It would be in keeping with this process to hog-tie the post offices with restrictive franchises and then close them for lack of financial viability. The gov. has withdrawn valuable business anyway - eg Road Fund Licences, benefits giros, etc. In reality, service provision will naturally (and should) follow cheaper provision pathways and on-line methods will replace post-offices. Or do you want to employ Monks to hand-copy parchments and deliver them by horse? Times change.
At the same time, mental health provision is compromised even further by the various NHS cash crises (why not reduce spending on the PFI? It costs 30% more to fund projects that way. Or abolish the ridiculous accounting method that generates fictitious deficits for health authorities and then double-charges them). Personally I am tired of the mistakes made by the post offices I use, the non-delivery of mail (running at close to 20% of the mail I post), the terrible response to complaints, etc, and have given up using them. I only use DHL and email now. Maybe what we need is to be more honest about the social changes we are engineering and why (declining industrial performance, poorly skilled workforce, poor education system, increasing trade deficit etc means that spiralling NHS costs cannot be met - medical inflation is not RPI it is much higher as new technologies and drugs are developed at high cost and increasingly abroad). Let's not mention expensive illegal wars. If we REALLY cared about elderly vulnerable people we would not let several hundred die every winter because they cannot afford heating - but we do. If we cared about children they would not be treated the way they are (and the unhappiest in Europe) and we would not force parents of young children out to work merely because the Treasury economic model projects lower average wage costs through a larger working force, lower benefits bill and less demand for social services (the real cost appears in a different ledger - neglected and deprived children, bad school performance, more crime, more depression etc etc and that is far more expensive).
I do not see that pretending that as a society we do care, and hence predicating arguments on the prevention of suffering, will work. It did not prevent 'care' in the community (which syphoned people from long-stay hospitals into jail, via a period of destitution), it does not prevent unjust and damaging remand of children, prison over-crowding, the failure of the probation system because 'justice' knows only retribution and cannot be allowed to be constructive rehabilitation (even though it cuts crime and is cheaper), the plight of the homeless.. and so on. Given this, it tends to make appeals based on 'justice' and 'suffering' look a little cynical - they won't work, so their purpose must be other than efficacy.
Maybe we do not need to save Post offices at all. Maybe we need a guarantee that a proportion of the savings and income from the process will be directed to service provision at local community level - perhaps based on libraries - and not re-directed to the salaries and travel expenses of directors of Quangos, or so-called not-for-profit sub-contractors to the welfare state? After all, it is not really POs that people want, it is a postal service, information, a place to meet, and a host of similar things. There must be better ways of doing it!