Post Office to close 37 branches in latest franchise push

A further showdown between Post Office bosses and unions has been sparked by the announcement that the service is to close another 37 of its "crown" branches.

According to the Communication Workers' Union (CWU), the move will put 290 core jobs at risk, plus 127 specialist financial services staff.

Bosses say they intend to replace the branches with franchised concessions in retailers, in line with the vast majority of the 11,600 outlets trading under the brand across the country.

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In a statement, the loss-making organisation, which split from Royal Mail when it was privatised in 2012 and remains under government control, said the moves are needed to "secure… services in communities around the UK for the long term".

It said: "With consumer habits changing, and the high cost of maintaining premises in prime high street locations, franchising helps us to keep services where our customers want and need them."

In April last year the service announced that WH Smith would open another 61 Post Office counters, of which around half would be owned by the retailer under a franchise arrangement.

Last year it was also announced that a further 93 directly-owned branches would be closed and replaced with franchised concessions, of which half have now "successfully relocated into retail stores".

Today there are only a few hundred "crown" post offices, with the larger wholly-owned stores usually located on high streets across the country. Most Post Offices are now run as franchises, with staff employed by the retailer in which the counter is based.

Unions are fiercely resisting the ongoing changes and arranging for 75,000 postcards from the public to be delivered to the government opposing the plans and calling a week of strike action before Christmas.

Union leaders are also fighting plans to close the Post Office's generous final salary pension scheme and replace it with a cheaper alternative.

CWU general secretary Dave Ward told the BBC: "The latest round of closures is further evidence that the Post Office is in crisis and that the board of the company, backed by the government, is simply pursuing a strategy of slash and burn.

Post Office is 'heading for extinction', claim unions

18 May

The Post Office is "heading for extinction" as a result of government cuts and its management should resign in protest, union officials have claimed.

Comments from the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Unite came as the company, which was split from Royal Mail in 2012 and remains publicly owned, announced close to 600 job cuts in its cash handling division.

This comes on top of union estimates that 500 jobs will be lost as more crown Post Offices are franchised, while 50 staff selling personal finance products in branches will also be axed.

"With a cut in its funding from £210m in 2013 to zero in 2019, these job losses show that under business secretary Sajid Javid's leadership the Post Office is heading the same way as the steel industry," Dave Ward, general secretary of the CWU, the main union for postal workers, told The Guardian.

"The Post Office's business plan, which was agreed with the government, has failed," added Brian Scott of Unite. "Those at the top should accept the blame for that, but instead they are adopting a slash-and-burn approach in an effort to cover this up."

The cuts to the Supply Chain division are a result of the company stopping cash handling services for third parties, demand for which has been in decline in recent years. Nine processing centres in Preston, Stoke, Hull, Edinburgh, Inverness, Poole, Eastbourne, Dartford and Merlin House in Birmingham will be closed.

Cash and valuables will still be handled for the Post Office's own 11,500 branches.

Post Office management criticised the unions for speaking out publicly before staff had been informed of the changes.

A spokesman told Sky News the changes were part of ongoing reforms designed "to ensure that we have a business that is set up to thrive over the long term, and can continue to provide important services to communities all over the UK".

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) also took issue with union claims over funding.

The "subsidy" for the Post Office has fallen from £210m to £80m since 2013 as operating losses have been stemmed, the spokesman said, but post-2018 financing has not yet been discussed and the government insists it has not pulled its support.

"We have always been clear that the Post Office will need some level of subsidy to maintain the non-commercial and social elements of its network, so any suggestion that the government would not consider funding post-2018 is complete nonsense," the spokesman added.

"BIS said that by 2018 it would have invested almost £2bn in modernising the Post Office network over seven years."