“The trends in post office closures and outreaches are leading to growing cracks in coverage and causing significant inconvenience and uncertainty for the people living in these communities.”
This was the conclusion that Citizens Advice came to after a new research of the post office network. The organisation found that 1,291 post offices in Britain were ‘temporarily closed’ in September 2021, nearly twice as many as the 662 in September 2017.
Although the closures were meant to be ‘temporary’, Citizens Advice found that they are “often closed for a significant period of time – more than eight in 10 for over a year”.
“One in three rural post offices in Britain are now provided as part-time outreaches,” the report continues. “These services are open for an average of only five and a half hours a week.”
Rural communities appear to be hit the most because of the closures, where people and small businesses rely on post office services the most.
Citizens Advice found that 23% of rural residents use a post office at least once a week. Older and disabled people, carers, and people who don’t use the internet are also disproportionately impacted, the report added.
“I think it’s extremely unacceptable that we’ve only got a service for so many hours of the week,” one interviewee mentions in the report, “because a lot of people will be living hand-to-mouth.”
“If their benefit payment comes through and they withdraw it at the post office, and they can’t get to the post office or it doesn’t exist anymore on the morning where they get that money, they might not have anything to eat,” it said.
The Post Office has vehemently rejected the report. “[The] Post Office does not accept that this report accurately reflects our network of 11,500 Post Offices that has been stable for a decade,” it said.
“Whilst banks and traditional retailers have reduced their presence on the high street and in towns and villages, Post Office is sustaining and strengthening its network across the UK.”
In its response, the company said that in 2019, Post Office opened over 200 branches across the network, while last year saw its fastest network growth for decades.
“From the end of March 2021 to end December 2021 the net growth in the network was 181. Sometimes branches do close, for example if a Postmaster has decided to retire after many decades of service,” it added.
The Citizens Advice report does commend the Post Office’s plans to increase its size and make running a post office easier and more financially viable for postmasters, but remains critical of the fact that the plans, such as a new Drop & Collect service, appear to be targeting mostly urban areas.
It added: “Although we welcome Post Office Ltd’s plans to increase the size of the network and provide additional parcel services, we remain unconvinced that this will make a significant difference to the problems we’ve identified.”
Consumer trends have shifted dramatically especially since the pandemic, with services increasingly moving online and increased competition for the Post Office.
“Postmasters also face challenges from the level of remuneration they receive for providing services, rising business rates and staffing costs,” the report notes.
“As a consequence, a sharply increasing proportion of post offices are provided on a part-time basis as outreach services,” it adds.
The issue of subsidy to postmasters is indeed raised in the Post Office’s statement, which reads: “Some of our branches, including many outreach post offices, are supported by a dedicated subsidy from the government to ensure a sufficient service for the number of customers in those communities.
“The costs of operating the network are not fixed, and the government should reflect this in determining the appropriate level of subsidy if it wishes to maintain current levels of service and accessibility.”
