On face value the Post Office is embracing a stronger culture of consultation and engagement. There is the promise of stronger postmaster engagement in the running of the business after the Horizon scandal and a new postmaster panel will be established to enable current postmasters to work with the company to improve the support and training provided to postmasters. The Post Office will also set up a new consultative council that will work with the Post Office’s senior management on how these new plans are taken forward, to provide genuine challenge and maintain focus on the needs of postmasters.
It came with some surprise, therefore, when more than 100 wholly owned, loss-making Post Office branches were announced to be at risk of closure as the state-owned company attempts to repair its finances.
Thankfully, its own principles of community engagement (June 2024) promise consultation prior to the decision of a permanent closure of a branch. Better still, the Post Office is no novice at engaging stakeholders – it has been consulting on making changes to post offices for many years’ via its consultation hub.
The response from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (on November 13th) was that “the government made it clear to the Post Office that they expect it to consult postmasters, trade unions and other stakeholders before any individual decisions are taken”. Aspects of the plans are also subject to Government funding and the outcomes of the upcoming spending review.
But there is a get-out clause in the Post Office principles that ‘There may be a small number of cases where due to circumstances outside our control we have no option other than to permanently close a branch in a particular location“.
We don’t think you could classify this as a ‘small change’ but we do think it’s predetermination in the making. It feels like a classic case of running too fast and forgetting the principles of meaningful consultation (perhaps even their obligations as a public corporation!).
It’s a timely reminder of the need for more pre-consultation engagement and robust option development. After all, ‘only just profitable’ does not seems like a reasonable criterion upon which to base the closure of branches which are providing other forms of social benefit. Especially when the root-cause of many of its problems are home grown.
All of this before the government has had chance to publish a Green Paper to consult the public on the long-term future of the Post Office.