12 September 2009 - Steve Lawson - Editors Comment - © Hellmail Postal News

Over the coming months, Hellmail will be looking at post offices, the role of the NFSP (National Federation of Subpostmasters) and what can be done to ensure the future of what many see as 'community hubs'.

I am still in the heartlands of Suffolk until Monday and learnt the hard way this week, that forgetting an item on my shopping list can be an expensive mistake. A return trip of around nine miles to Sudbury for tea bags, with petrol still at high prices, is not cost-effective. I have been somewhat spoilt by living so close to stores such as Tesco - this is an entirely different ball game. Any trip has to take in several locations and merit the cost of the fuel or you simply stay put. I have yet to discover if nearby Bures has a post office but given the remoteness of this location, one would hope that it has.

Despite the losses, I was able to forage across all 20 acres yesterday and gather sufficient fruit from the hedgerows to make an enormous mixed fruit crumble. I feel rather pleased with myself at having made the best of what nature had to offer and the few cuts I sustained amongst the blackberry bushes seem to have been worth it. Post here arrives around mid day and is deposited in a wooden box two fields away. I don't resent the distance too much (even on foot) as its a journey of discovery in its own right with pheasants, and birds I have yet to learn the species, breaking up the walk rather nicely. Theres also a resident fox, who having been once rescued from a wire fence by the landowner, gives a cursory nod whenever he sees me. Respect.

The expectation of an early delivery of post via the Royal Mail is all about to disappear as it shifts ever closer to standard office hours on delivery. That might all sound logical, except when you consider that even now, some deliveries arrive as late as 4pm, which for some businesses is too late to respond and any action delayed until the following day.

Certainly for the vast majority of UK residents, there is little post that could be regarded as time-sensitive, but for small business, it can be make or break. Unfortunately, the 'vast majority' seems to have been adopted as a template for a more 'modern' delivery service as Royal Mail reshapes its letters business with only the more expensive special delivery service (before 9am or before 1pm) likely to provide anything close to a predictable time.

This is where the humble post office begins to fall short of offering real choice for consumers and in the absence of Postwatch, (and I may be stating the obvious here) surely in a liberalised market, post offices should be able to offer more than just Royal Mail or Parcel Force, particularly with such a plethora of alternative courier services including DHL and Parcel2go.

I have raised the point many times that Post Office Ltd is so heavily tied into Royal Mail, it not only limits consumer choice, it also restricts any entrepernerial spirit by subpostmasters. These restrictions could see yet more post offices close over the coming years, indicative of a plan for a liberlised market that hasn't been fully thought through.

It would be unfair to say that Post Office Ltd isn't trying. In fact it is already making tentative steps towards offering banking services via the Post Office Card Account, but to my mind this still sidesteps a pressing need to liberalise postal services across the board, and is, lets be honest, only a step up from POL's preoccupation with offering travel insurance and internet services.

This was all driven home to me in the midst of the recent post office closures frenzy, when I spoke to a subpostmaster in the Dales who was determined to remain open. His view was that under the closure plan, no structure existed to support those that were viable, and that POL was still pulling the strings on which services he would be allowed to provide. This effectively (and still does) leaves subpostmasters wholly at the mercy of whatever business decisions are made by POL themselves, and stocking up on tins of cat food and gravy granules often the only way to ensure a living.

It must surely be obvious that in liberalising letters, post offices would be directly affected by additional competition. The problem isn't limited to the UK with other European countries, as well as the U.S., also having to close post offices at a time when we should be seriously rethinking their role in the community and how best we can ensure that they not only have a future, but that customers have choice in what proports to be a liberalised industry.

Unfortunately, liberlisation has so far only really benefitted bulk mailers. Postcomm has had a somewhat thankless task, trying to encourage competition (or at least not stifle it) and also regulate the postal market - often leaving it unable to please anyone, and TNT Post, which is still furious that Royal Mail was granted a continuation of it's VAT advantage is a case in point, with the concept of a 'level playing field' (whatever that is), seemingly beyond everyones grasp. The most logical step would be to tackle the role of post offices but I see little will from anyone to overhaul this side of the postal network which will inevitably leave the 'vast majority' seeing little benefit from liberalisation at all.

Many private operators can only offer minimum orders, say for 100 parcels, a door-to-door pickup service being expensive to provide (hence the thresholds), but offering a greater choice of postal/parcel operator via post offices, would help develop the role of post offices and ordinary consumers could begin to see the benefits of competition at last.

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