There’s no point. This is an EU initiative. Parliament couldn’t stop privatisation of mail services even if it wanted to.

Why would a liberal want a state monopoly on postal services?

But let’s try anyway! Woo!

Evidence of that Nick? Competition was an EU initiative as far as I was aware, not shutting down post offices because of how poorly they’re being run.

Lee, I am not an expert and this page is couched in EU-speak: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/post/legislation_en.htm

But my understanding is that the legislation, in a series of steps, is removing monopoly control over different aspects of the mail service, while at the same time reducing the scope for governments to subsidise favoured postal companies. This implies de-facto privitisation as the government is increasingly neither able to offer funding support nor make the market favourable to the Royal Mail. This happens to be one of the least worst things the EU is doing (whether it actually filters down to improvements for the consumer is yet to be seen), but it is certainly doing it.

Cheers, I’ll take a look, though I’m sure I won’t have any more luck deciphering than you

I am sorry but I just don’t see that the case has been made for protecting and preserving the Post Office “as is”. The Post Office has been around for so long it has become an institution but we can not afford to preserve institutions which no longer meet todays needs.

I tend to look at things by stripping down into components and assessing their function, the need for them and their effectiveness.

Thus one part of the operation is Post Offices, whether Crown or franchised. These survived for many years by having all sorts of functions thrust upon them by governments to prop them up. Remember the horrors of renewing tax discs? TV licenses? The flow of benefits through Post Offices, an irrelevant bank. Post Offices must either be profitable or close. They may survive as internet parcel collection and deposit points but I see no need for those to be state owned. I would rather some were in the customer friendly out of town Tesco with parking than in a town centre or some run down regional sorting ofice.

Local Post Offices are emotional. It is political death to suggest closing them. Much like rural railways. However, this is 2009. Where thousands of people are being squezed, we can not waste taxpayers money on a misdirected subsidy. It seems to me invidious that one local shop should receive state support as a subsidised Post Office whilst another does not. Again they need to either be profitable or be closed.

This brutalism is driven by the fact that much of the services provided are obsolete. Apart from collecting parcels, what is the point? It is tough to say benefits must go to a bank account but that must be the case. It can be a ring fenced account from which only cash withdrawals can be made and creditors can not access if need be. All you need is to give each recipient a cashpoint card.

On another site I upset someone by advocating the closure of rural Post Offices. Apparently I did not appreciate how important they were for the elderly people he bussed there. He did not appreciate that what they wanted was to visit a shop not a post office. That shop can accept and weigh letters, give cashback on your benefit cashcard and provide conversation.

The universal service obligation is important. I don’t see a need for daily collections and deliveries. For residential lets be honest – who came home and walked in over 3 days mail? Oh you didn’t tidy it at the weekend? For commercial then it may be that a private contractor offers daily delivery, in more rural areas perhaps twice weekly.

You look in horror but life moves on. I work in an office and have done so for 20 years. In the last year I have not received more than 5 letters (all from the same company inviting me to spend £800 on one day courses – guess what?). That’s reality. 100 emails a day with attachments whose printed weight would make a postie flinch.

Of course Compass’ main objection is ostensibly to privatisation. Let us be clear, the important point is the service and the efficiency of providing it not the ownership of the delivery tool. Rejecting privatisation must be based on logic. Compass has failed to convince me. Windfall profits? No you only get those with a monopoly, ownership of a scarce asset, or where there is a barrier to competition. That need not occur.

I am afraid that leaving the Post Office as a single entity in the public sector will only end in tears. Expensive tears. Now is the time for root and branch reform, for segregation of Post Offices from collection and delivery, perhaps the creation of Regional Delivery Companies and their sale in a couple of years time. The Post Office is only minimally a public service. It is largely a commercial operation and those are most efficient where in the private sector.

It won’t win votes though.

Post Offices must either be profitable or close.

Why?

I think the distinction between the post office as a service for people (collecting pensions and what not) and a service for delivery has to be made. Those that are campaigning for the post offices to stay open generally cite economic impact of the loss and proximity of a location some must go to.

Why does the post office need to be this place? Are there not more ways that competition could bring out as to delivering service? Why do people think the post office specifically is the only way to deliver other essential elements of life for communities?

Doesn’t it say something about our community that if a post office is closed down our governments, local and national, have left us nothing else? Cities have it alright, major towns perhaps too…they perhaps have civic centres and such, but smaller communities that get government funding are still even overlooking the simplest of community amenities.

Travel and distance is often cited as a reason why post offices should stay open, yet it is clear that that business does not work. When we argue against closures we’re doing so without an open mind as to the potential out there for better services that can be forged by a lack of monopoly by a public entity haemorrhaging money. For example, who’s to say that parcels can’t be picked up as well as delivered? It’s already been vaunted by some delivery folk trying to double their cash…there you have a potential doubling of revenue streams yet I’m not sure it’s ever really been commercially accepted. Too complicated perhaps given the amount of money being lost.

If Post Offices disappeared and nothing else took their place that’d be a tragedy, and is the only reason that I am wary of these closures…cutting something off and hoping the markets will fill the gap will invariably leave too many vulnerable people without support and does nothing for environmental impacts of delivery. But otherwise, if a plan was more structured to show a clear line of moving from this public liability to a commercial security then I could probably support it. But we won’t ever hear of that sort of plan, because the anti-closure crowd are just too loud, for better or for worse.

“If post offices are not profitable they must close”. The “why” for that is that that was a conclusion based on an analysis/opinion that they do not provide a service that can not be delivered in other ways. Thus keeping them open, whilst unprofitable, is a misdirected subsidy.

Let’s not see our post services privatised and then 5 or 10 years down the line find ourselves campaigning for a tax on the windfall profits of privatised post service companies, in the same way we’ve had to with privatised energy companies

Obvious difference: we *need* energy.

Let’s not see our post services privatised and then 5 or 10 years down the line find ourselves campaigning for a tax on the windfall profits of privatised post service companies, in the same way we’ve had to with privatised energy companies.

You are objecting to privatisation of the Royal Mail on the grounds that it will enable the government to extract a lot of tax revenue from from it, at a time when the government is more than a bit indebted?