Andrew Stunell's Submission to the BERR Select Committee's Post Office Enquiry

Published on Tue 10th Feb 2009

Securing the future of the Post Office Network is a vital part of any strategy to give value to local communities, not only in rural areas but also in urban and suburban areas such as my constituency. I therefore very much welcome your inquiry, and hope that it can propose a wide range of practical steps to develop profitable trading through the Network that will find favour with the Government and Post Office very quickly.

I strongly welcomed the government announcement in November of the renewal of the Post Office Card Account, which has helped to safeguard the futures of almost 3,000 Post Offices across the country.

However, it can only be a temporary reprieve, and the Post Office Network needs to be made viable for the longer term if we are to avoid any further losses, which are so damaging to communities.

That can only be achieved by putting more profitable business in their way.

An important first step requires a willingness by Government Departments and other public bodies to facilitate the use of Post Office premises to transact their business on a paid agency basis. If this is to be achieved on a sufficiently wide scale there will have to be a change in philosophy by these bodies from a 'least institutional cost' basis to a more holistic view that prices-in local community benefit.

There are a wide range of central government services that either have in the past or could be channelled that way.

These include the payment of Road Fund Licenses ('Tax Disc') and TV licenses. I do welcome the revised wording on Tax Disc renewal forms in that it does mention the Post Office option, and even allows users of that route to take part in the promotional competition, but it is still somewhat grudging in tone and presentation. It is a step in the right direction that now needs to be followed by DWP and the Pensions Agency in respect of all payments out, and by the Magistrates Courts and the Child Support Agency (and others) in respect of payments in.

There is too, clearly scope for re-invigorating the Network as a serious competitor to 'Paypoint' for payments of utility bills.

The Post Office is potentially a wonderful vehicle to act as a kind of government service "one-stop shop". If it was used as such, it would not only ensure that the network was viable, but it could also offer services to the small local communities who rely on the Post Office, that they ordinarily struggle to gain access to, such as JobCentrePlus.

Finally, I want the Committee to consider the case for developing the Post Office as a serious vehicle for providing full banking services, particularly to the socially excluded, and particularly when the commercial banks have demonstrated so comprehensively how inadequate they are to perform this task.

Such a bank once existed - the Trustee Savings Bank. The best that can be said is that it was expropriated and sold off by the Government of the day, and is now back in semi nationalised form. However any vestige of its original ethos or raison d'etre is long gone, and a replacement is urgently needed. The Post Office has the Network to deliver it, and the Government now has the scope to enable it in the newly transformed financial services environment.

I very much look forward to seeing the recommendations of your Committee in due course.