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12/9/24, 3:50 PM Post Office to announce branch closures and job cuts in cost-cutting drive I Post Office I The Guardian
Post Office
Post Office to announce branch closures and
job cuts in cost-cutting drive
Company seeking to shut or refranchise most of its crown
Post offices and cut up to 1,000 head office positions
© The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, this week expressed his support for the long-term future of the
Post Office. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Mark Sweney
‘Tue 12 Nov 2024 18.37 GMT
The Post Office is expected to announce the closure of dozens of branches
and cut up to 1,000 head office jobs as it seeks to reduce costs to secure its
financial future.
There are about 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK, of which 115 are
wholly centrally owned. The rest are operated by independent post office
operators under contract and partners such as WH Smith and Tesco.
The Post Office is seeking to shut or refranchise most of its wholly owned
network, known as crown post offices, affecting as many as 1,000 jobs.
It has been reducing the number of crown post offices for a number of years.
There were almost 400 in 2012.
In addition, the company is seeking to cut as many as 1,000 jobs from its
head office. It also intends to unveil enhanced remuneration terms for the
franchisees who run 9,000 post office branches independently.
Nigel Railton, the chair of the Post Office, is expected to announce the
measures on Wednesday as part of a strategic review that he instigated in
June.
A Post Office spokesperson said: “Tomorrow we will set out a ‘New Deal’ for
postmasters and the future of the Post Office as an organisation. It will
dramatically increase postmasters’ share of revenues, strengthen our branch
network and make it work better for local communities, independent
postmasters and our partners who own and operate branches.”
Last week the former postal minister Kevin Hollinrake criticised the
outgoing Post Office chief executive, Nick Read, for failing to take cost-
cutting action in its central operations.
https:/www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/12/post-office-to-announce-branch-closures-job-cuts 116
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12/9/24, 3:50 PM Post Office to announce branch closures and job cuts in cost-cutting drive I Post Office I The Guardian
“T was extremely frustrated by the Post Office’s inability to provide this basic
information,” Hollinrake told the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal. “A
particular example of this is [Read’s] inability or unwillingness to reduce
central costs. It was like drawing teeth.”
He said the failure to make cuts was a “failure of leadership”, and added
there were 143 employees at the Post Office earning £100,000 or more.
This week the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, expressed his support
for the long-term future of the Post Office under a new model of governance
that would include post office branch operators.
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“T think despite the scale of this scandal, the Post Office is still an incredibly
important institution in national life,” he said. “As an institution, as a brand,
there is still tremendous affection and desire for the Post Office to have a
strong future. I don’t think subpostmasters make significant enough
remuneration from what the public requires from the Post Office.”
While Reynolds was open to options such as mutualisation, he said the
“structure of the business model has to change to be sustainable”. He
pointed out that the Post Office required a large annual taxpayer subsidy and
the underwriting of various liabilities such as compensation schemes and
the ballooning cost of a replacement for Horizon.
Sky News first reported the potential branch closures and job cuts.
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1B Nov 2024 3 May 2024
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