Tim Allen’s Postmaster Ponderings: My letter to the Interim PO Chair

In the latest Postmaster Ponderings blog, NFSP Joint Members' Editor Tim Allen shares a letter he wrote to Interim Post Office Ltd (PO) Chair Nigel Railton. The letter covers what postmasters need from the centre of PO, the Strategic Review, postmaster remuneration, an Oversight Committee, his post office in Kington Main and more.

Nigel Railton, the Post Office Ltd (PO) Interim Chair, told the Horizon Inquiry that some of his recommendations might not be liked by quite a few PO employees. He wasn’t kidding if a recent article in the Sunday Times is accurate. Mr Railton did tell the Inquiry, in so many words, that it was time to stand PO on its head and make it a support organisation for postmasters instead of postmasters being a support organisation for PO.

The article in question told us that Teneo, the authors of the PO commissioned Strategic Review, have recommended a reduction in PO staff from 3,500 to just 1,000. How jaw dropping is that? 2,500 staff at an average cost of £50k per head (PO 2022/23 accounts) is £125million. That’s potentially an average of an additional £10,000 that could find its way to every post office in the country if only the world was as simple as we would like it to be.

So, here’s a letter to Nigel Railton. It’s been sent. No reply needed. None expected.

Dear Mr Railton,

Re: Strategic Review Outcomes

Thank you for your words, at the Inquiry, in support of the change every postmaster knows we need. It was great to hear that your conversation with (Postmaster Non-Executive Directors) Saf Ismail and Elliot Jacobs prior to taking the Interim Chair position was a significant part of your motivation to take it on.

Both Saf and Elliot run multiple branches of urban post offices. All that you will have heard from them about the social purpose of post offices is amplified in deeply rural areas where we truly do function and fulfill the role of the heart of the community, retail and SME economy.

Amplified by the loss of the two banks and a building society, Kington Main is an incredibly busy 120-year-old small post office, serving a market town on the English / Welsh border and more than 50 other villages and communities around us in west Herefordshire and Powys (Radnorshire as was). We have a population considerably older than the national norm, a less digital population and a population where cash is highly utilised. Despite these positive factors Kington Post Office, as a post office, is not a stand-alone commercially viable model at this time.

I have had a good career in fibre optic communications and became a postmaster in 2019 with the simple objective of preventing the town’s post office from closing after Royal Mail withdrew their Sorting Office, which had been paying valuable rent from the site. It was an expensive decision and initially cost my wife and I £2,000/month for the best part of two years as I gradually reduced those losses to £1,000/month when, after four years, Post Office granted me rural support. I remain grateful for that decision.

I heard your words spoken at the Inquiry “We need to reverse the polarity of the Post Office. We need the postmasters to be at the centre of the Post Office and the centre, as it is now, to become a service function to the postmasters.”

“The plan provides a new deal for postmasters and will deliver this structure”.

I appreciate the government’s response to your plan is out of your hands but your sincerity and clear minded thoughts on the issues affecting us are vitally important, not just to postmasters but to each individual analogue customer that we serve.

Initially I thought it was enough to simply keep our town’s post office open but had to re-evaluate this thinking when the proposition to force all customers online and end DLVA services in post offices was announced and outraged me. I launched both an online petition and a written petition and was contacted by Calum Greenhow at the NFSP who extended the hand of friendship and ultimately invited me to attend No.10 where a number of us handed it in and gathered some good media support.

To be effective in our social purpose we must be relevant to the needs of our customers. The list of both mandatory and optional government services that have been withdrawn from us over the last decade is both wrong and extraordinary. These decisions, made in government silo’s, not only squander the strength of post offices but does society a disservice.

Whilst the NFSP proposition for an Oversight Committee may not have gained sufficient traction, many of the principals, such as listening to Age Concern and disability groups who represent the needs of important members of our society and also not leaving postmasters with a dysfunctional financial position if the shareholding ownership does pass to us in some way are important. 

We need the Post Office centre to truly understand the needs of the wonderful customers who walk, or perhaps use mobility scooters, to come through our door each day and lobby, cajole and work relentlessly on behalf of the society we want to serve but so often cannot.  I think you, personally, get this and we therefore need you please to remain with us regardless of government’s response to your Strategic Plan. We need you to make the most of what comes back to you and to arrest the revolving door of senior management. Most of all we need you to help us believe in you all. 

On the subject of postmaster remuneration, an explanation for 85% of postmasters not responding to the Inquiry survey can come from postmaster renumeration being so poor that they are unwilling to give any strategic thinking time to the post office element of their business. Earning 2p for selling a stamp and less than £50/month from DVLA business does not value the service we provide, and, in turn, I fear that not every postmaster is as committed as everyone would wish. Everyone needs to do better. Everyone needs to be motivated to do better.

The proposition of a post office cull is, in my opinion, the last option that should be considered. Post Office’s USP is the number of outlets but the claimed “11,500” is already a massaged deception. Including, and increasing numbers of, Drop and Go locations is no more than statistical manipulation when they are allowed to be part of an externally set Post Office Ltd target.

My point is that there can surely be no immediate threat to busy city post offices and once you take out the top 20% of income earning branches, my guess is that monthly income for the rest will be no more than an average of £3k per month. If this is right, or even close, how many post offices would have to close to make any significant impact on the cost position of PO?  It’s the cost at centre that is wrong along with the London centric wages, that would seem insanely high to every postmaster.

Many of us who voted for Saf or Elliot to become the first PO NEDs will have wondered what they were doing for us over the last three to four years. We know now that they were subject to exclusion from meetings of importance and gagged by conflict-of-interest confidentiality clauses from speaking out. Their value has, in a single stroke, been brought out through their testimony, your testimony and that of the previous Chairman. The postmaster voice still under-represents the needs of truly rural communities but enough has been heard for the social purpose to be ringing out and I simply hope this sound grows louder and its meaning understood not just in government but in the post office where people of your importance, to our present and future, remember it every day.

Please stick with us and remain in post for as long as you can Mr Railton. You would be welcome to visit Kington anytime.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Allen

Postmaster Kington Main

This article is the individual ponderings of a postmaster and does not necessarily reflect the views of the NFSP but is the sort of communication we receive or hear that in turn is reflected in our future policies/actions.