DTi meddling in the post;Business editor's commentary
THE Post Office -Consignia -is not privatised but the Government erected an elaborate structure to indicate that it had a degree of independence. The Government was to be seen as shareholder but the management of the organisation was to get on with running it.
That was the basis on which Allan Leighton agreed to take on the temporary chairmanship of Consignia. If he was to try to tackle the deep-rooted problems that are now costing the country a mind-blowing Pounds 1.5 million a day, then he would be looking to the Government for support but not for interference. Any deviation from that agreement would ensure that his stay in the chairman’s role would indeed be temporary, rather than converting into the permanent job that Tony Blair envisaged for him.
So one can imagine that the former Asda chief executive is feeling more than a little frustrated this morning. He knows what he wants to do to stem the losses and begin to make the Post Office an efficient, customer-centred service operator. His workforce, aware that there will have to be huge job losses, would like to hear those plans now. But it seems that the Government is urging silence. One can almost hear the voice of Jo Moore suggesting that there will be a better moment to announce massive redundancies, probably when the nation is busily street partying during the jubilee celebrations.
The Government’s squeamishness over the Post Office appears to be leading it to trample in another quarter where it should not tread. There are signs that ministers may be trying to persuade the Postal Services Regulator to water down some of his proposals for opening the way for more competition in the sector. Admittedly, Allan Leighton was horrified by the regulator’s enthusiasm for depriving the Post Office of its monopoly and made his views clearly known to the Government. But the regulator’s independence is enshrined in law and it should not be tampered with. Graham Corbett is a tough individual and he should not be swayed by any ministerial pressure. If he were to be, it would undermine the entire principle of economic regulation in Britain.
