Monday, December 10, 2007

Meanwhile, Down at the Post Office...

The Post Office, in its infinite commercial wisdom, is closing 56 post offices in Kent, and after a cursory three week public consultation (in which it received 5,000 representations) disrupted by the postal strike, it has reprieved two. Strangely enough, they have now also added two to the 'cull' list. This afternoon I went to my local post office in Pembury to post some parcels and foreign letters. The queue was huge. I decided to go to the one in the neighbouring village. A similar story. So off I toddled to one in Tunbridge Wells. Standing room only. In the end I went back to my local one and waited for 27 minutes to be served.

Now I accept that in the two weeks before Christmas this may not be unusual, but it happens virtually every time I want to use the facilities of a post office. I venture to suggest that somewhere along the line the Post Office management is getting something wrong.

36 comments:

Man in a Shed said...

Its similar in Woking. Our crown post office is to be closed are relocated to the basement of WH Smiths - but there is always a queue there when I go in. How can it not be making money ? ( Or perhaps its the property value the Royal Mail wants - so as to subsidise other services in Labour heartlands ).

Can you imagine it a town the size of Woking not being able to justify its own post office !

PS Iain your ducking David Cameron's anti-English statements in Edinburgh. Anything to be sacrificed for the Union ( by which he means England of course - as we are all lining up to give the Scots and Welsh more devolution and money ).

Anonymous said...

If you are heading out towards Lewes, stop in at Five Ash Down and see how a village post office can be run effectively.

Chris Paul said...

Post Office management under Crozier are *insert Guido-ism* They are running PO counters on hardly mitigated capitalist principles. Ditto the other two parts of the business.

This is largely because of competition rulings in Europe which Tories and Lib Dems (!) voted through and Labour opposed. An exemption for this industry would I think have been possible.

The GPO's golden goose of telecomms was of course privatised long before this.

I have been in Hansard on a PO saving campaign. The particular one mentioned closed because the sub postmaster wanted to give up.

The next nearest one was the only one of about 25 in our city that we managed to save. It is still thriving.

A Lib Dem cllr who did nothing except run whingeing Focus reports has not honoured his promise to buy us all a beer if it survived.

Perhaps if the Tories made a firm funding commitment to counters with a detailed rationale we could get into a better dialogue with the LP centre and they could give the Crozier management different ground rules?

But I think it is fair to say that would likely be the same story or worse under Conservatives. And even the Lib Dems have policy to privatise the lot.

Tory Radio said...

Reasons it doesn't make money:-

1) The amount of money made on each transaction is tiny
2) Government in its wisdom pushed peopel into having money paid into bank accounts and not through post office counters which hit the network
3) Postage costs relative to Europe are quite low and in past years the organisation (Royal Mail) made a loss on each letter posted
4) When I worked for them there was a network of 19,000 post office branches - name me another retailer which has such an extensive network - NONE.
5) People say they want their local post office - but then they hardly use it - it has always been a case if use it or lose it.

So those who visit a couple of times a year and then moan when it closes really can't complain. Do you bank with the Post Office etc etc...

Management should face some of the blame - as the products and services that are offered have never been the most innovative, but at the same time, when Royal Mail (as opposed to Post office) was extremely profitable governments of all colours took out huge dividends which let to a huge lack of investment.

We are now seeing the result of this I'm afraid.

Anonymous said...

I think the fact is that although their service is still massively in demand, it brings them very little revenue (c.f. the jazzy new advertising screens in major POs - the attempts of cashiers to sell you travel insurance or credit cards...)

How to solve that one? Pay-per-use? Commission on stamps sold?? Someone who knows more about it than me may have some clues...

Patriccus said...

Yes, and this is not the first time the POs in Kent have been downsized over the Christmas break.

But tell me Iain, why the interest in the Kentish postal service - anything to do with the fact that the main county sorting is in Maidstone perchance?

;-)

Anonymous said...

Nothing worse than being stuck in a Post Office queue behind someone with parcels and foreign letters...

Mulligan said...

Tell them you're a member of WestLife and you'll get served straight away.

Anonymous said...

Post Office/Royal Mail management? What Post Office/Royal Mail management? Uncoordinated party in brewery springs to mind. Anyway, not much family silver left to sell.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, near-monopoly publicly owned company is unresponsive to its customers and doesn't understand commercial logic. Somebody call the Guinness Book of Records.

Clumsy irony aside, I dealt with the Post Office a lot in my former job. Almost everybody in government knows it should be privatised, and lose its commitment to uniform nationwide pricing (this is a prime example of Britain gold-plating an EU Directive), but NuLab obviously can't admit that. So it's lumbered along from crisis to crisis for a decade. Like so many of our other public services, really ...

Johnny Norfolk said...

Have you seen the cheap and nasty tv ads by the post office. Thy call it 'the peoples post office' whilst they set about closing them all over the country. just like Labour say one thing do another.

When they start closing them in Norfolk it will hit the old folk very hard.
Imagine what the BBC would say about it if the Tories were in power.
Labour should be ashamed with themselves making the most vulnerabe in society suffer

Anonymous said...

If its economical for you to drive to 3 post offices to try find one that's quiet, it sounds to me that you've got two too many post offices near you.

Clearly what your area needs is one big post office with sufficient staff. Lower costs (only the overheads of one post office to deal with instead of three) and better service because you have sufficient staff and resources to offer more complex services.

Basing an argument for Royal Mail's efficiency on how busy post offices are in the fortnight before Xmas is as sensible as claiming that Santa needs more elves for all 364 days of the year because you walked in on Xmas Eve and everyone was rushed off their feet. Nonsense based on a partial view.

Anonymous said...

You have to be competitive under the terms of the Thatcherite settlement.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, it was the Tories who, in their privatising frenzy, sold off the Girobank to Alliance & Leicester in 1990 for £100m or so. It was a brilliant initiative [sadly, by the Wilson government], years ahead of its time, and was just turning profitable. With the recent withdrawal of the clearing banks from villages and towns, Girobank would have gone from strength to strength; providing banking services for individuals and small companies. It would also have helped to make the post office network viable. A truly innovative Tory party would start working on recreating Girobank for the 21st century. It wouldn't be unduly expensive, and the individual skills are there. It would, above all, be popular. Time, surely, for the big idea.

I'm not an exemployee, by the way, just a member of the public who was profoundly depressed when such an obviously good business was 'given away' on wrong-headed political principles.

Anonymous said...

Man in a Shed said...

"Can you imagine it a town the size of Woking not being able to justify its own post office !"

I know of at least four sub-post-offices in Woking.

Anonymous said...

I hold the Post Office in the same contempt it appears to hold all it's customers.

In my five years in England (having been to about 20-30) post offices in that time - I have never seen a short queue.

I have never met either a pleasant member of staff or a competent one.

If possible - the delivery service should stay publicly owned but the counter services and offices should be sold off.

Anonymous said...

Most villages now can hardly support a shop of any description, let alone an organisation plagued by lousy management, bolshie unions, commercial restraints, political interference, too many branches, and a rapidly changing market.

Man in a Shed said...

Anon 10 Dec - yep there are - but they won't all survive. The question is why the central crown post office isn't viable in its current location.

The parliamentary candidates for both Labour and Lib Dems have been out campaigning on this issue.

I've emailed the post office who confirm that the closure of the main post office is being considered along with relocation to the basement of WH Smiths. But why ?

I see Tory Radio's point - but then surely the answer is to charge more for the services. If a post office isn't viable in the centre of Woking when its filled with customers are post offices viable anywhere ?

PS Have added a picture of the (crowded - and its like this most lunch times) interior of Woking crown PO to my blog - I had a post in prep on this issue as its likely to appear in local campaigning - but I'll out it up now to make the point.

Anonymous said...

I am lucky - I discovered a Post Office near me in west London which largely serves a Muslim clientele. So no queues at Christmas! I went in last week to post my boxes to the troops - thank for putting me on to that, Iain - and was in and out in five minutes. Of course this probably means the PO is going to close this branch down ...

Anonymous said...

a Post Office at a convenient location and a universal cost of postage supplied by a well paid, contented staff is far too close to a socialist ideal for anyone in the Tory, Labour or Lib Dems to contemplate. Privatise the lot, sit back and moan when the shit hits the fan. After all thats the way it has been since the days Maggie

Anonymous said...

Silly Iain. You're supposed to post your parcels and letters online. Tsk!

Anonymous said...

If you want to see a real queue, go to the central post office in Belfast. The queues there are always 3 deep, even bigger on pension or family allowance day.

It's dreadful!

Anonymous said...

Iain sounds to me what is happening is that Post Office Ltd is doing what A Darling instructed them to do.

Back in June he made an announcment that 2500 post offices were to close. If you save one, you have to close another one to keep the numbers up.

This process now is about access not business. Profitable post offices in the wrong place may be closed. Loss making ones in the right place will survive. In a few years time when the loses mount they too will have to close.

The gvt have been complicit in taking away services like benefits, road tax, passports, tv license, etc so reducing foot fall, and in turn using the reduced footfall as a reason to close them down.

By the time this will finish Labour will have closed 1/3 of the post office network it inherrited in 97. Shameful.

Anonymous said...

Ditto (again!) in Uxbridge. I went in for travel insurance, waited 40 mins! They are going to move it to top floor of WH Smiths with less counters - incredible!

Anonymous said...

Yup, they've moved the Ilford Town Centre PO to WHSmiths.

I do not begin to understand why I can't get my TV licence there but can get broadband????

Word verification is apt - ikdysocy!

Anonymous said...

The post office is like all nationalized industries. Which is a highly expensive inefficient way of keeping people out of productive private sector employment or on social security for life.

I cant think of one thing post office counters do that could not have been done years ago by automation of some kind or another.

(Remember by far and away the biggest cost of running a post office counter system is the wages bill. A cost or employment which this government has increased at an alarming rate.)

The post office in general loses money because it has long since been run for reasons other then profit.

It is not the duty of this country to offer a job to the WORLD or even the people born here. Just to provide plenty of votes for our current NWO FASCIST government.

Cameron has a choice when he gets in. Sack 3 million useless mainly imported public 'service' workers at least so risking violence in the streets an a sharp national depression. Even worse then the one we are going to have anyway. Or sign us up to EU NWO socialist Fascism for eternity.

There is a pattern emerging in this so called democracy. Which should radically depress any intelligent freedom loving person who has been paying attention.

Put simply; we have all been here before, and it was not at all nice last time.

There is a world of difference between free market liberal conservative democratic capitalism and Corporate Fascist social democratic capitalism.

The first creates an opportunity to prosper, protects liberty and builds prisons only to put serious criminals in.

The second creates dependent slaves and serious elected criminals, deliberately destroys liberty and builds prisons only to put people like me in.

We all know which type of capitalists Gordon Brown and New Labour are. Thats completely self apparent after 10 years.

My worry is I am not sure anymore which type Cameron is.

What is also my concern is that if he is thankfully the first type of capitalist.

Will the BIG MONEY people that control just about everything in this world, allow him to be successful, and if so at what cost?

Your insight Iain into some kind of answer to these VITAL questions, would be much appreciated.

Roger Evans said...

The Post Office in Romford always has a queue - right out of the door and along the pavement...

Anonymous said...

What you fail to understand Ian is that with a lot of services adding additional staff, to shorten queues, is regarded as a cost burden to the business. It doesn't matter if it costs you to stand in the queue as long as it does not cost the business. So they will not add extra staff in a bank at lunch time, nor will the Post Office open extra branches.

Anonymous said...

I'll be very sorry to see my Kentish sub-Post Office close. Being just across the road from my flat it's so convenient.

It's also convenient because I seem to be its solitary customer so I never have to queue.

Anonymous said...

save the post office [10.37 PM]

I think you've hit on something! Let's make everyone renew their road tax at a post office (instead of making a phone call). Insist that they have to make three separate visits: once with the insurance certificate, once with the MoT certificate, and once with the cheque. Result: Higher footfalls! Post offices rescued! Problem solved!

Or am I missing something?

Anonymous said...

You should use one of the Post Offices on the parliamentary estate - there's never a long wait at them.

Anonymous said...

All you country folk could come into London to use our Post Offices. We have way more than we need. Within a 10minute walk of my house are 3 sub post offices and 1 main post office. If I extend my walk to 15 minutes I can find another 3 sub post offices. 20 minutes for another 2 main post offices and several more sub post offices - in one case there are two in the same street virtually within sight of each other. Its plain to me that country post offices are being closed in order to finance the over-requirement of post offices in London.

Newmania said...

vqThe PO loses about £250 million a year .For the most part this is due to the natural decline in need , internet, paying welfare directly to banks and so on. The Liberal and Labour Party have moreover supported the Unions in their efforts to stop any of the changes that might have been made. In this case innovative management would have been required and that was hardly likely in the public sector .Nokia supplied the red army with boots for about fity years and then in five .... that’s was real world competition does for you
I am highly dubious that, as Chris Paul suggest that there could have an exemption for communications were on thev EU shopping list right from the start in accordance with the ‘function’ plan to extend EU influence. With Brown quietly selling the county it is a bit rich anyway. The Conservative Party are quite clearly the Party who have realised the need for independence form the EU in some form.

There are some difficult problems involved but partly it is simple. The labour Party sprays endless wasted money at its heartlands but the English Countryside = has been under vengeful attack for ten years, they will not lift a finger because it is not their country. Had it been a problem affecting their corrupt heart , like the NE , then £30 billion would not have been too much

Atlas not everyone has a comouetr or even a car.Sub Post offices going will kill many villages and precious communties . Can you imagine how little Labour care about that.

Roger Thornhill said...

Iain, they are clearing the way for Deutsche Post to take over.

Self-interested or self-loathers. Some are both.

p.s. Johnny Norfolk - I noticed the "peoples post office" ads. I suppose calling them "peoples" is to soften the population up for the inevitable state of anything so prefixed...

p.p.s. if it were down to chris paul, we would still be on dialup at home but the PO would have a state monopoly on internet cafes.

Anonymous said...

I think the biggest problem is too many people coming in for unnecessary things. Most postage can be bought online/in advance/from other places.

--http://miracleUK.info/

Anonymous said...

Osama the Nazrene said "...It doesn't matter if it costs you to stand in the queue as long as it does not cost the business. So they will not add extra staff in a bank at lunch time..." - Surely it isn't extra staff that is required; simply not sending all of your staff for their lunch-break at exactly the same time as the rest of the nation has their lunchtime would do. Admittedly the rest of the nation could stagger their lunch breaks too.