Post Office - More Closures
The proposed loss of 2000 Post Offices, poses the question what is the balance between the state and market in determining the level of a service.
I know I use the Post Office much less in the 7 years I have had internet access.
We know that many younger people use the service less. At the same time many elderly people still want to use the service.
This strikes me as an opportunity to practice localism:
1. The government should allow Council's to add a post office precept to the Council Tax to subsidise retention of extra services above a national minimum. We would then know how much a priority local politicians attached to this service. I suspect it will be less than some imagine?
2. Council's could then also include post office services in their libraries, which might then strengthen use of both services
3. Council's should promote post office services such as the way you can pay all your household bills at the post office. Maybe there should be an article in Sutton Scene promoting the use of the post office under the theme of "use it, or lose it!"
I know I use the Post Office much less in the 7 years I have had internet access.
We know that many younger people use the service less. At the same time many elderly people still want to use the service.
This strikes me as an opportunity to practice localism:
1. The government should allow Council's to add a post office precept to the Council Tax to subsidise retention of extra services above a national minimum. We would then know how much a priority local politicians attached to this service. I suspect it will be less than some imagine?
2. Council's could then also include post office services in their libraries, which might then strengthen use of both services
3. Council's should promote post office services such as the way you can pay all your household bills at the post office. Maybe there should be an article in Sutton Scene promoting the use of the post office under the theme of "use it, or lose it!"
posted by Charlie Mansell at 5:24 pm
1 Comments:
Post offices and social value
Today we have the news that between "about 2,500 and 3,000 post offices - most in rural areas - face phased closure." Royal Mail hints at a whopping 10,000 possible closures. The government, for its part, "recognises the wider social role of the Post Office in communities" according to the Guardian and other sources.
The public subsidy is apparently already substantial - well, probably, if we knew how to measure 'substantial'. Some millions of pounds sterling are in one side of the balance: what's in the other scale?
Sorry, the scale only measures pounds, not social experience. It depends on how as a society we value social interaction, especially the value of purpose and contact for those who may feel themselves to be on the periphery. I think that locally-applicable policies affecting the availability of amenities and resources like this should be risk-assessed for the extent to which they might damage informal social networks. (What do you mean we can't do that? Has it been tried? No, because the language - 'gossip,' community,' 'contact' - is not regarded as legitimate. So can we change the language, please.)
It also depends on what other (formally measurable) contributions to the local economy might be made by post offices. And here's a report published by the New Economics Foundation just the other day, on the economic contribution of post offices in urban areas based on a study in Manchester.
For every £10 earned in income, the post office generates £16.20 for its local economy – including £6.20 in direct spending on local goods and services.
Based on in-depth analysis of Manchester post offices, this means that each post office contributes in the region of £310,000 to the local economy each year, of which £120,000 is direct spending on local goods and services.
In addition, nef’s analysis reveals that each post office saves small businesses in their direct vicinity in the region of £270,000 each year.
Social capital is unfortunately unpopular at the moment, but this may become a bit of a social policy crisis because the voice of economic management seems to be saying, 'the level of public subsidy is unsustainable'. So we need some creative reinvention of the role of individual post offices within the network, some recognition of their wider economic impact, and more than just stamp-licking lip-service for the value of the social role. Qualitative evidence from nef’s survey
emphasises the vital and overlooked social services role played by Post Offices. This evidence supports previous research which found that half of the subpostmasters in disadvantaged areas keep an eye out for between 20 and 50 vulnerable customers.
And here's a comment from the BBC news forum to illustrate the impact of a closure:
We lost our local post office which was within walking distance two years ago... It has definitely impacted on our community here - at the old post office we used to go there to do other things and catch up on the local gossip. We can't do that now.
The BBC has a page on 'How to set up a community-run post office' here.
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