UK Country offices could take council tax and reports for the police

Village post offices need to provide more services if the rural network is to survive, according to leading figures in the industry.

While this could include serving as the village shop and bank, it could also include police and council services for which the government should pay, they argue.

Rural post offices are threatened by the same long-term trends undermining other village businesses: migration to urban areas and a shift to supermarket shopping.

But the 8,100 remaining rural offices, most of which are privately-owned and operated, have also been hit by the introduction of direct payment of pensions and benefits into bank accounts. This business used to ensure a steady flow of customers to smaller post offices, to whom the postmasters or mistresses hoped to sell other goods and services. But Postcomm, the regulator, estimates only one in 10 rural post offices are now profitable.

The government has said the network needs to become commercially viable and Royal Mail is trying to achieve this with a push into Post Office-branded financial services, from travel insurance to individual savings accounts. But the focus on the commercial side will not be enough to preserve the rural network, says Colin Baker, head of the National Federation of Subpostmasters, the organisation that represents the owners of these branches.

“The general public do not consider the post office to be a private business, they see it as a public service. But no one is paying for this service,” he says. Post office owners are paid a fee for each government transaction they process, such as TV licence and passport applications, but they claim these payments barely cover costs.

Mr Baker thinks the government needs to put more money behind rural post offices. But rather than rely on a direct subsidy, he says revenues could be boosted by providing more government and public sector services.

“If every government department would look at the post office network as a resource for delivering their services then the network has a chance of survival,” he says.

Sue Huggins, general manager of the rural post office network at Royal Mail, is already looking at ways to expand the social role of rural post offices.

In Norfolk there is a trial in which counter staff take reports of minor incidents and lost property for the local police, making the most of the public’s trust in post office staff and freeing police officers to tackle other problems. If adopted nationally, police forces would pay the Post Office a fee for providing access to their services through its network. “This means an extension to police services and a small increase in income for post offices,” says Ms Huggins.

Other options could in-clude councils paying post offices to let people pay council tax and parking fines over their counters, using post offices for the distribution of repeat prescriptions, or the introduction of births, deaths and marriages registration.

“If more government products and services could be delivered through the post office network, the government would get more for its subsidy,” says Ian Fisher, of consumer group Postwatch.

Ms Huggins says Royal Mail and the Post Office have started to embrace this joined-up thinking: “No idea is out of the question.”