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‘An immediate and urgent review of ongoing injustices relating to the treatment of postmasters’ has been called for by the chief executive officer of the National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP), Calum Greenhow.
Greenhow wrote to the secretary of state for business and trade, Jonathan Reynolds, to request a review to assess the consequences of the Network Transformation Scheme (NT), which was an initiative to modernise and restructure the Post Office (PO), running between 2012 to 2018.
The scheme “detrimentally affected” the income of postmasters, according to the NFSP. It saw postmasters given the option to modernise their branches, relocate, or leave the network with a termination payment. However, after the government backpedalled, new models changed the postmasters’ payment structure, so they were paid per transaction rather than receiving a fixed salary, resulting in individual financial loss.
Postmasters were also told by the government that, with the introduction of the NT, their PO would be the ‘Front Office’ for new services such as payment of speeding fines, booking theatre and train tickets and others that failed to materialise. Instead of adding more services, many Government services were actually removed from PO branches
Removal of these services further “crippled” postmasters financially, said the NFSP, reducing their footfall and therefore remuneration.
Greenhow said: “Postmasters have invested in this network so are de facto business partners of the government. However, decisions made over the last decade have been to the detriment of that investment with postmasters, with their businesses being devalued and their ability to serve their communities diminished as well.
“Adding to this, postmasters tell us they felt pressured, forced and some have said they were ‘bullied’ into converting their office under NT, and this has been a financial instability. It is time for postmasters’ investment to be fully recognised by the government and for a full review into the actions of PO.”
Greenhow added that there remains a question in whether “the same culture that led to the Horizon scandal was present” via the NT. Prior to NT, the government were subsidising PO with £250m, but this figure has been reduced to £50m ‘at the cost of the postmasters’.
The call for action comes after a survey of branches by the NFSP, seen by Better Retailing revealed that 43% of branch owners make no profit from their PO, and 9% make a loss.
NFSP appeals for help in contacting Horizon scandal victims
Postmaster reactions
Jeremy Brown, who owns a post office in Hadleigh, Suffolk, said NT “is the cause of our current problems”.
“At the time of NT, we were lied to, threatened and blackmailed by the PO and their NT Advisors,” he continued.
“They were on big bonuses to achieve their targets, what does that remind you of? We were promised that we would become ‘the front office of government’ with lots of new work. While the government was promising us this new work, they were telling all government departments to cut costs and that their interaction with the public should be ‘digital by default’ therefore they were saying don’t give any work to the Post Office, it’s too expensive.
“Most Postmasters receive no fixed income. Any fixed income was removed under NT. We need an immediate return to a significant element of fixed income, or the network will collapse. Our Post Offices are a social enterprise, we do vast amounts of unpaid work assisting the local community, especially the vulnerable and elderly who rely on us. This work is not recognised by PO and remains unpaid. Post Offices are vital to the future of the high street and the local economy and provide huge added value.”
Postmaster Peter Montgomery, who owned a PO between 2002 to 2018, said the “flawed restructuring” “robed” him of a “stable and settled retirement”. “We lost £100k on [our property] valuation not to mention our income for four years which were the worst years of our lives. That £100k was to be our retirement pot and part of the funding to downsize and purchase a new home.
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