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Sue Perry Alan Bates
Sales Support The Wool Post
Post Office Counters Ltd Craig-y-Don Post Office
Lionel Street Queens Road
Birmingham LLANDUDNO
B3 1HQ LL30 1AZ
7 June 2001
Dear Ms Perry
In reply to your letter dated 1 May 2001which really fails to meet many of the comments of
my original letter and purely offers the standard responses, I would like to request further
information.
Why is it that the majority of new services such as Photo on Licence and Passport Checking
are always given to the Branch Offices as a matter of course, when it is the Branch Offices
themselves which are losing nearly £1 million per week and so in reality are being subsidised
by sub offices like ourselves? From the position of running a sub office it would seem that in
such instances, even if it is not a policy, the reality of the situation seems to show that The
Post Office is operating a restrictive practise in order to prop up the ailing part of the
business, in this instance the Branch Offices. This is certainly not in the best interests of the
customer and unlike the senior management I do spend considerable time with customers and
I do have some understanding of their needs. Paragraph two of your letter states ‘In an ideal
world all post offices should be able to offer all products and services, unfortunately this
practise is not cost effective,’ so how is it cost effective to subsidise Branch Offices to the
tune of £50 million per year?
In my original letter dated 1“! February 2001 I pointed out that my office is growing the
volume of its business month by month over previous years figures, but in real terms my
income from the Post Office is reducing month after month. I presume that is either to prop
up the Branch Office network or to try and recover some of the outrageous costs associated
with the appalling disaster called Horizon. Before taking over this office three years ago I
had spent many years working with new epos systems, both off the shelf and custom made
and by comparison to what Horizon could have been, the current system is a joke. Speaking
from the point of view of someone working on the counter, who has spent years working with
effectives systems it is only too obvious that the system is overly complicated, slow and
cumbersome. The totally inadequate report system has been made so complex it lacks the
ability to interrogate the system when you know the information is inside. This is not only
frustrating but causes hours of extra work for which again we do not get paid. The
introduction of the system at this office has personally cost me between £1000-2000, but
regardless of who you talk to nobody wants to know, it is always someone else’s
responsibility, never theirs!
There is no sign anywhere from any of the senior management of Post Office Network that
they have a real grasp or experience of what happens at the counter. There are however
plenty of words printed of how wonderful the future will be, but the future is here now and
business is shrinking, and almost nothing has appeared on the counter to offset the loss.
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When we took over the business three years ago, a condition imposed by POCL was to open
lunchtimes and Wednesday afternoons, but the salary for the office was not increased to
cover this. We were told the extra revenue generated during these periods would cover costs.
Three years on and there is still no sign of this so called extra income as the reality is that
business has just time shifted; Oh, we also have to redirect all the people wanting MVL’s to
the nearest Branch Office as all the surrounding sub offices which offer MVL’s are closed on
lunchtimes and Wednesday afternoons. These extra hours, nearly 500 over the year, have
effectively reduced our salary an extra £2000 per year, but nobody wants to know or do
something real to try and help!
Whilst I am commenting on the ways POCL bullies financial pressures onto a small business
such as ours, there is the matter of the National Lottery Terminal at this office. This not only
formed part of the contractual conditions for taking over the office which required us to stay
open longer on Lottery night to provide the service, but also formed part of our income in our
business plan. Within a few months of taking over the business and doubling the Lottery
turnover, POCL came and took the terminal away as you felt you could make more money
with it elsewhere, a sort of ‘to hell with the contract we can do whatever we like, we’re
POCL’ attitude, and again nobody wants to know!
Returning to your letter you state ‘that 92% of the population in Britain were situated within
2 miles of an office offering the DVLA facility’. The 92% was achieved without Craig-y-don
Post Office and presumably these offices also offer all other Post Office products. Therefore
Post Office products would still be available to 92% of the population if Craig-y-don Post
Office closed. So either make me an offer to close the Post Office side of my business and
thereby increase the profitability of surrounding offices or provide me with the services my
customers require and ensure the viability of this office. To let the situation fester on is not
only poor management with an increasing financial burden for this and the other surrounding
offices, but it also raises the question of the morality of Post Office Networks’ actions.
I know your response to my queries and comments will be how you sympathise with my
comments and how they have been forwarded to whoever, but at the end of the day, nobody
will accept the responsibility to actually do something real and make a difference.
Yours sincerely
Alan Bates
Subpostmaster Craig-y-don Post Office