Post Office could be owned by its workers, government says

The government can be transformed into an enterprise of employees because it initiates a public opinion consultation on the future of service.

Operating benches or stores in more than 11,500 places throughout the country, the enterprise belongs to the state and subsidized by the taxpayer.

The response plans have been discussed for more than a decade, but it has been considered as scandal in which the false conviction of the sub -postmaster.

“It is clear that we need a new vision,” Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas started a green paper about the future of service. ” He said.

The government said he wanted to transform the culture of the organization after the scandal, who saw that he was accused of wrong accounting and theft in the branches they carry out on the basis of data from incorrect software.

The scandal was brought to the agenda last week, after publishing the first report of his findings after the public opinion of the public about what was going wrong, focusing on the influence on the sub -postmaster and their families.

Mr. Thomas said the post office was “a terrible history, bad commercial record and unstable leadership.”

However 12 -week advice Authorized, “in the coming years of what they want and needed from the post office of people, an honest conversation” would indicate.

This includes whether the post office is currently required to operate a compulsory 11,500 branches.

The Minister also announced another £ 118 million to support the ongoing work to make changes in the post office.

Post office is the England’s largest retail network, but most of its meters operates in other stores such as newspaper dealers and markets and even libraries.

In addition to the property problem, the government wants an opinion on which services of the post office should provide in the future, especially in banking services, as the high street bank branches continue to close.

Currently, customers can use the post office to pay and withdraw money from accounts in most banks. They can buy foreign currencies, receive welfare benefit forms and payments, and send passport applications. However, the whole range of services is only available on larger sites.

In addition to the green article, researches have been published in the post office to households’ £ 5.2 billion per year and £ 1.3 billion annually to small and medium -sized enterprises.

However, the work fought to make profits based on tens of millions of pounds of state subsidies by returning to online services and online services and other delivery operators.

According to the post office, 99.7% of the population now live within three miles of a post office and 4,000 of its branches are open for seven days a week.

The post office has already announced that it has shifted its last independent stores to the franchise model where the majority is carried out, and that it gives franchise owners the right to provide post office services with other retail services.

However, depending on the consequences of the consultation, the government may be more shaking in the property structure because it searches for ways to reverse the business.

Last year, the Post Office Minister Parliament said that almost half of the branches were not profitable or made a small profit from the post office business. This led to a paid stagnation for postmaster.

The idea of making the post office a cooperative organization gathered in 2012 after leaving the Royal Mail, the service that delivered the post to the door.

Many small businesses operate on a kind of common ownership model, but the most well -known larger British businesses are John Lewis partnership and cooperative.

In mutual business organizations, personnel are more interested in making decisions and they have more shares in terms of the performance of the enterprise.

The government said that switching to a mutual model would be “complex, time -consuming and potentially expensive” and that such changes should wait until the post office is “financial and operational stability”.

However, two alternatives swam for long -term exchange:

• A mutual joint venture of the Altmaster to operate the government and the post office
• A Charter model used for BBC and universities, the government, which puts forward the guidance principles but quit the role of property

The advocates of mutual mutual, argue that the horizon scandal would not be realized if the personnel were part of the administration.

Neil Brocklehurst, the General Manager of the Post Office, said the green article offers a national speech about the future of our post office and their roles in supporting communities in the United Kingdom. “