Hypocrisy? The Post Office idea of common sense

The media have once again woken up to the scandal of post office closures Financial Mail has been banging on about for years. Of course, the small fact London is the latest region to be bashed - with 171 branches getting axed - has a lot to do with this. After all, Fleet Street's finest sit here behind a desk.

The protestations of hypocrisy may be, well... hypocritical, from certain quarters but is still extremely welcome for helping to fight the cause. Few believe pure integrity will get you up the greasy smokes-and-mirrors pole in Westminster so it is hardly front-page news. But at least the exposure of MPs voting for post office closures and then complaining it is unjust reveals the shear scale of all this nonsense.

Indeed, another criticism recently levelled at the closure programme is that it is targeting profit-making branches as well as those that make a loss. So? The Save Our Post Office campaign is not just about fighting for an essential social network.

A major driving force is the sheer scale of incompetence and bureaucratic bungling that has enabled stupid decisions to turn the closure programme into a catastrophe. The men-in-suits sticking lethal pins into the map don't even bother to visit the branches. And to dress this up as a consultation process is an insult to all our communities.

And so the time has come. The grim reaper has finally knocked on my own front door. The local Churchfield Road post office in South Woodford, east London, has just been handed the black spot.

During many visits to other branches across Britain I at least had the smug satisfaction my own branch would never shut - after all, it is always so busy, fantastically well run and makes the Post Office a profit. Right. What has common sense to do with it?

Toby Walne

toby@walne.co.uk

Comments

[Keith Horwell]

I have been told by Post Office Ltd that I need 1,000 customer visits per week in order to make my office profitable. We are open for 25 hours weekly and average 282 customer visits, that is 5.3 minutes per customer,no matter how many transactions are performed within those visits.
A target of 1,000 visits per week (1.5 minutes per customer) is clearly impossible to achieve. Many of our regular customers perform multiple transactions at the counter and the advent of internet trading means that some customers can be at the counter for up to twenty minutes. Fortunately, as we all know each other in this rural community, our more time-consuming clients have the common sense to visit at quieter times during the week. The 1,000 visits per week target also presupposes a steady flow of customers throughout the day. Is that possible? I think not.
I cannot believe that our office makes a loss, we are busy nearly all of the time, and the only explanation can be that the costs incurred further up the line by Post Office Ltd are factored down to the branches, but the branches have to pay the price. If our office does lose money, busy as it is, the only conclusion is that there is something seriously wrong with the Post Office's business model. I bet the one's who wrote it get to keep their jobs.

[John W]

Hi Toby

You have an impressive blog going here, and you are echoing our thoughts throughout.

You may not know yet, but a national campaign has been getting underway over the past few weeks. You could do a great deal to help your own campaign and the ‘Post Office Service’ in the UK by promoting CAPOC – Communities Against Post Office Closures – website http://www.postofficeclosures.org.uk/NationalCampaign.php .

One point I would make here - The Post Office in the UK is a service, not a business. There is a big difference in running a service on business-like grounds, and running it as a business. It is in the current mess because the government has tried to run it as a business!