For what it's worth

This is an edited version of the response I made to the DTI on their proposals for Post Office network modification.

The December 2006 proposals for reshaping the Post Office network propose that the network be designed to achieve widespread access to Post Office “outlets”. In rural areas, for example, 95% of the population are to be within three miles of an “outlet”.

I agree that there was need for a review. I agree that defined levels of access are far better than the previous network rationale which might be summed up as “protect what happened to have survived so far”.

But I am very unhappy about the extremely wide range of provision that is being covered by the term “outlet”. The report notes: “an ‘outlet’ can be a fixed branch or a location at which outreach services are available”.

I have no problem with Post Office services being delivered from non-traditional premises, or from a van.

But the crucial flaw in the proposals is that there is no specification of when these services should be available. A visiting Post Office van parked outside the village hall for 30 minutes a week will count as an Outlet, just as a Post Office facility within an open-all-hours village shop will count as an Outlet. But the needs that they will meet are very different.

The once-a-week visit will allow the pensioner to draw cash, and it will allow the less mobile to transact other predictable business (like renewing a tax disc). But it will be useless for anyone needing to send a packet or parcel on any of the other days of the week.

As the proposals stand, there will be rural customers supposedly covered by a once-a-week “outlet”, where outgoing post will effectively be limited to items that will fit into the postbox. Anything larger could involve a drive to the nearest “full-time” outlet – and in some areas, this could easily be 10 miles, and sometimes more than 25 miles away.

Rural users need an additional promise – that 95% of them will be within 3 miles of a daily parcel collection point. That doesn’t need to be a Post Office or even an outlet that sells other services - but it does need to be somewhere local where users can take a parcel, have it weighed, and pay their money. Alternatively, the Post Office could arrange for the local postman/postwoman to call and collect a parcel or package from the customer - as long as this was at the same price as from a Post Office outlet, and as long as the user could order such a collection simply and quickly.

If this doesn’t happen, many small rural businesses will face a real impediment to their continuation, and hopes for a rural renaissance will be even more fanciful than at present. It’s all very well having broadband internet to a rural business for bringing in the orders, but how will that business survive if sending out their orders involves a daily 20-mile round-trip to the nearest full-time Post Office “outlet”?

The once-a-week “outlet” also falls down badly in serving the needs of rural businesses that need to pay in or withdraw cash on a daily basis. Admittedly, cash is becoming less critical for many businesses, and there may be relatively few rural businesses that are deeply rural, yet take in too much cash to safely store until the weekly visit from the Post Office “outlet”. But the proposals show no sign that the needs of these businesses have even been considered.

Labels: Network, Post Office, rural