Tag: Europe

2,500 UK Post Offices will close

Posted by | May 17, 2007 | |

As expected Alistair Darling has confirmed there will be 2,500 compensated post office closures over the next 18 months. This will leave a post office network by spring 2009 of about 11,800 post offices.

Millie Banerjee, Chair of the watchdog for postal services, Postwatch, gave the following reaction to the news:

“This will not be a popular decision. But there is a broad consensus amongst those who have been considering the future of post offices that quite severe pruning is necessary if the remaining network is to be sustainable.

“Fewer customer visits and losses of over GBP 200 million a year meant action was needed. It is welcome that the government has confirmed today that financial support in excess of GBP 1.5 billion will be available up to 2011.

“We wanted the government to take a decision and to provide the missing strategic guidance. It is now down to Post Office Limited to work with Postwatch, MPs, local authorities and customers to implement the decision and to maintain as far as possible customer access to post offices services. We welcome the introduction of 500 alternative post offices in place of their bricks and mortar counterparts. These alternative mobile, part-time or co-located solutions provide local access at far less cost.

“Customers will be concerned to know if their local office is under threat. At this early stage no-one knows which offices will be proposed for closure. An announcement will be made once the closure consultation plan and timetable are finalised.

“I am sure customers will recognise that it is better for closures to be planned rather than unplanned: Unplanned closures could have led to some areas having no access at all to post office services.

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GBP 1.7bn investment to keep Post Office network national

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

Investment, stronger protections for local communities and more outreach services are at the centre of the Government’s GBP 1.7 billion proposals to maintain a national Post Office network and put it on a sustainable footing for the e-mail age.

Responding to the wide consultation undertaken since the December 2006 statement, Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling has announced the Government has strengthened further the protections for customers in rural and remote areas and widened the areas that will qualify for special protections for deprived urban communities.

With widespread acceptance that the current size of the network is unsustainable and losses rising to GBP 4 million every week, despite an annual subsidy of GBP 150 million and total investment of GBP 2 billion since 1999, it will be for Post Office Ltd to draw up local area plans within the national framework. That will be done with input from local authorities, MPs, the consumer protection body Postwatch and subpostmasters, for consultation with local people.

Postwatch will also monitor future decisions on the shape and size of the network to ensure Post Office Ltd continues to comply with the national framework.

In the longer term, the Government is working on proposals to devolve greater responsibility for future decisions on post offices to a local level, and will investigate what role local authorities and the devolved administrations could play in decisions on future services and funding.

The strategy announced today does not include decisions on individual post offices. These will be taken by Post Office Ltd after their local area consultations.

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Remote post offices could avoid the axe

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

Post offices in some of the most remote parts of Britain could be spared from closing in a late rethink by ministers.

But the move, understood to help areas of Scotland in particular, will lead to suspicions that Labour is trying to revive its battered fortunes in Gordon Brown’s homeland.

Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, will confirm tomorrow that about 2,500 post offices will have to shut over the next 18 months.

Mr Darling is expected to tell MPs that, with many branches struggling to attract any business, the current UK-wide network of more than 14,000 post offices must be slimmed down to about 12,000.

He is poised to confirm the scale of the closure programme, first outlined last December, despite presiding over a consultation process that produced more than 2,500 responses.

Mr Darling will attempt to soften the blow by confirming a compensation package likely to be worth on average pounds 60,000 for each branch that has to shut.

He will also confirm that as part of a pounds 1.7 billion investment between now and 2011, there will also be an annual subsidy of pounds 150 million to help the remaining post offices most at risk.

Even after tomorrow’s announcement, people in particular parts of the country will have to wait up to 18 months to find out if their branch is doomed under lengthy local consultation processes to be overseen by Post Office Ltd.

But last night, Government sources hinted that in one concession, Mr Darling, who also represents a Scottish constituency, would issue amended guidance to protect branches from closure in more inaccessible parts of the UK.

A well-placed source suggested last night that the Highlands of Scotland in particular would probably benefit from the change.

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TNT to cooperate with independent study of reorganisation plans

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

TNT NV will cooperate with an independent study of plans for a major reorganisation, the company said.

The study was requested by several labour unions and a works council within TNT post that are seeking clarification on the restructuring, one of the largest in Dutch history.

Acknowledging that ‘it is common for social partners to get a ‘second opinion’ study done on complex and thorough reorganisations’, TNT said the Boston Consulting Group would carry out the independent investigation, which is expected to reach completion in June.

Last month TNT faced the possibility of a rare showdown with ‘shocked’ unions after announcing plans to cut between 6,500 and 7,000 jobs from its total global staff of 80,000.

The company, which is restructuring amid increased competition, had previously said 11,000 jobs would go.

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Correos displays its online products at the

Posted by | May 16, 2007 | |

Correos is taking part in the 11th National Conference on Internet, Telecommunications and the Information society, ‘Mundo Internet 2007’, which is organised every year by the Association of Internet Users (AUI), with the aim of offering a global and integrated vision of the state of internet technologies and their practical application. The conference, which begins today, is being held in Malaga.

During the conference, which will continue until next Wednesday, the postal company will be informing people about its “Virtual Post Office”, the aim of which is to provide the public with the necessary technological resources to carry out a large number of transactions using the internet, including sending letters, personalised postcards, telegrams, registered mail, notifications, money orders and burofaxes. This service responds to public demand for easier access to postal services. The website also provides all types of postal information (postal code and branch locator, delivery tracker, cost calculator, etc.).

According to Ricardo Ferreiro, Correos’ regional director for Western Andalusia, “our sponsorship of ‘Mundo Internet 2007’ is yet another example of our commitment to using the internet, and to extending the Information Society through a “Virtual Post Office” that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the services and products of which are becoming ever more widely known among the public and the Spanish business sector.”

As part of the services supplied, ‘Tu Sello’ was launched at the beginning of the year, and has become one of the postal company’s star products. It consists of personalised stamps, that is, stamps with the images or motifs of the customer’s choice, which are processed through the online service

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