Indie Jerry Brown sets sights on network transformation project that slashed postmasters’ incomes
Postmasters’ champion Jerry Brown has turned his attention to the network transformation project which caused PO incomes to plummet, and fears that the Post Office is set to shut branches.
Jerry, who co-owns First Class Greetings and Plum Green in Hadleigh with wife Debbie, has been one of those working to see postmasters affected by the long-running IT debacle rightfully remunerated, and believes the latest issue “is potentially just as big, if not bigger, than the Horizon scandal”.
The network transformation (NT) project changed the way sub-postmasters like Jerry, who has run the Hadleigh post office for 20 years, were paid from a fixed salary to per transaction, slashing their income overnight while the Post Office tried to move customers to use online services rather than going into stores.
Appearing on BBC’s Look East programme on Tuesday, 12 November, Jerry and fellow sub-postmaster Chris Attrridge, from Crick Post Office, told presenter Susie Fowler-Watt that the government had promised to put more work through POs via the NT project, such as speeding fines, and helping with Department Of Work And Pensions forms, but instead started pushing the Digital By Default strapline.
“Not only didn’t we get the new work,” Jerry said, “they took all the old work away, things like pensions, the old Post Office card account where benefits were paid into and people had to come into a post office to collect those benefits, that went too. There were so many other bits of work that we got from government which disappeared, they said one thing and did the exact opposite.”
Calum Greenhow, CEO of the National Federation Of Sub-Postmasters, has written to Secretary Of State For Business & Trade the Rt Hon Jonathan Reynolds MP, to request “an immediate and urgent review of ongoing injustices and concerns relating to the treatment of postmasters” over the scheme, which started in 2012.
Sub-postmasters say they were told the project would make them the front office for new services including selling train and cinema tickets, and giving out fishing licences, so there would be more transactions.
Explaining that he has to subsidise the PO from the greeting card and gift retailing side as well as his state pension because the income doesn’t even cover staff wages, Jerry added: “We were promised lots of jam for losing the allocated monthly payment but they were telling their departments not to give it to us because it had to go online. That has had an absolutely devastating effect on us and our income and caused horrendous problems for postmasters.
“It is about the appalling remuneration that we get to provide services that the government say are essential services.”
Accepting that moving services online has been happening everywhere, Jerry pointed to those who don’t want to do that: “There’s a generational thing, people still like to come in and tax their car, for example, but on the reminder now for the car tax, they don’t even mention that you can pay for it in a post office – I’ve tried to take that up with DVLA, but they don’t want to know.”
With his generated income having dropped by 30% compared to 2012, a real-terms cut by half with inflation, he said it’s not sustainable and added: “I’m a pensioner and it’s my pension that is helping to keep the post office open, without that I don’t know where we’d be.
“Most post offices are owned and run by small businesses who need to make a profit so why do we have to subsidise the post office within our business? From an income point of view, I believe most, if not all, postmasters are subsidising their post office from their retail business.”
And Jerry pointed out that the social enterprise side of POs does “vast amounts of unpaid work assisting the local community” but said: “We need an immediate return to a significant element of fixed income, or the network will collapse.”
However, he is hopeful things may change with the Horizon scandal meaning chairman Nigel Railton has been listening to postmasters since his appointment in May this year: “I’ve never met people within post office like them. They are totally different. They get it, they are going to reverse the polarity and, instead of postmasters being at the bottom of the pile being paid peanuts, we’re going to be at the top.”
There have also been stories in the news this week about Post Office moves to axe around 115 unprofitable sites from its 11,500-strong network, which Jerry says have been mis-reported.
He said: “No decision has been made, the DMBs used to be called crowns but are now called directly-managed branches – same thing though, and they’re losing a lot of money because Post Office Limited are not retailers, they’ve no idea how to run them.
“They’re looking at all options. If a particular office goes, a new operator would open up, not necessarily in the same building but nearby, and that new operator would probably be a postmaster like me.
“Post Office Limited are trying to transition themselves from doing these things and become what they are really, a service organisation for postmasters to provide us the means to do the work on the front line.
“It does mean that if they do close, people will lose their jobs, but those new operators that come in are going to need staff, and they need staff that know what they’re doing.
“So, the story is so much more complex than they’re closing 115 offices, and even if they were, it’s for the benefit of the other 11,000 offices, of which 7,500 are run by postmasters
