With the closure of St John’s post office last month and remembering a conversation I had with the gentleman who had been considering running the post office, I am interested to see what the coalition government decides to do about part privatisation of the post office. 

Post Offices provide an important service to the local community as more than just somewhere that handles post, banking, insurance and other similar services – they can be the heart of a local community.  As I have mentioned before, this service is important, but perhaps not an additional service that councils should be seeking to subsidise.  I am told that one of the most restrictive problems with the post office is that all post masters and sub post masters are employed by the Post Office directly and are not able to greatly vary their operating hours, meaning the Post Office has to be open during loss making hours as well as the profitable ones.  If Post Offices are truly to thrive in our local communities then they must be free to vary their hours to an extent which serves the local community and allows them to make a profit.  This could mean that the Post Office is open less, which will be a disadvantage for some, but better than no Post Office at all – something we are experiencing in some areas already. On the other hand, some sub post masters may wish to open later or on Saturday afternoons or even on Sundays, if that is when they find that they can get the best return based on when customers want to come and use the Post Office.  This could save Post Offices having to close, if they can become more financially viable.

Making the opening hours of Post Offices more flexible to meet demand might not sound like something that would require part privatisation or a form of employee ownership and in my opinion it should not, but perhaps the Post Office is in the situation it is precisely because it needs significant change to move forward.  Another reason that the Post Office would benefit from privatisation would be enabling the Post Office to offer new services, innovate and possibly expand, as well possibly bringing in new ideas and capital.

I worry that the Post Office is not positioning itself for home delivery in the way that its competitors are doing, I understand that Amazon is building a network of alternative places that customers can collect parcels if they were not home when they were delivered, such as local pubs, petrol stations and even restaurants.  If Post Offices are not able to be flexible with their hours and services, they may start to become irrelevant alongside these collection points that will likely soon offer postage services as well as collection.

I would personally favour a form of employee ownership of the Post Office, similar to the John Lewis Partnership, over a large company buying a significant holding, but it may be that this method would fail to raise the investment that the Post Office management says it requires, but does fit with the coalition government’s commitment to have local communities and local employees running their own public sector services.

I know that many postal workers are concerned that part-privatisation will result in job losses. While this remains a risk, there is an even more pressing issue that without part privatisation and innovation the post office may face an even higher level of job losses.

I am pleased that some of the services that were run from St John’s post office have continued such as news paper delivery, it is even more convenient that it is now possible to pay the papers online and cancel a delivery by text, a service I was not aware of before, it is this type of innovations that can take place to save our local Post Offices.