The SubPostmaster Magazine

STEVE: What were the options
HtP postmasters had?
CALUM: In February last year, PO
gave three options, none of which
were necessarily agreeable to the
group of postmasters.
They could stay as they were but
would then lose their leavers’
payment and would have to sell their
business when they retired.
The second option was to convert
to a Local. That would mean they
would lose what is known as the
basic remuneration on an assigned
office payment. They would only
receive a transactional fee, and then
their businesses would probably no
longer be viable.
The third option was to leave the
network with 26 months’ worth of
compensation if a replacement could
be found before 31 March 2024. If that
could not be secured, then they
would be forced out by January of
2025 with reduced compensation of
only 12 months.
STEVE: Can you talk me through
your situations, Sue, and Barry?
SUE: There’s nobody and no other
business interested in taking my post
office on. I’m just emotionally and
mentally exhausted.
If our money is cut to 12 months,
I’ve got to pay a subcontractor to
come in and remove everything. I’ll
also have to close my tearoom
business while it's being done and
will lose a lot of money.
BARRY: We couldn’t afford to lose
our payment by changing to a Local,
so my choice was to leave the
network while we could and still have
the 26 months’ payment.
It was a very hard decision to make.
We took the post office on when
Safeway was taken over by Morrisons
and they got rid of all their post
offices.
We couldn’t let the elderly people
in our community travel miles to
another office. Now it just feels like
PO is letting us down. The support
should be there.
SUE: I feel the same as you, Barry.
Our post office is like one big family,
and we know all our customers. We
are there to help the community as
much as we can.
STEVE: How did you feel when you
found out that the leavers’
payment was going to be reduced
from 26 months to 12 months? As
Sue touched on earlier, that money
is for taking out fittings and
furniture, paying staff
redundancies and other things as
well?
BARRY: It was a big shock. When
someone is made redundant in a
normal job, they get a payment. This
is sort of our redundancy.
SUE: That money was ringfenced for
us. The 26 months’ money was for all
of us, it was put aside to pay us, so
where's it gone?
CALUM: With the help of our legal
team, we’ve made Freedom of
Information requests to both
government and to PO, to ask where
the £640 million that Jo Swinson
gave to PO back in 2014 has gone?
She said to Parliament that money
was to complete NT. The three of us
are the living embodiment that it
isn’t complete.
The condition of resignation that
we signed back in 2015 said that the
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