Davey launches Post Office waiting time fight
30th May 2008
Post Office Managing Director and London Postwatch contacted
Following the disappointment about Post Office Ltd's decision to push ahead with closing 5 local post offices, local MP, Edward Davey, is demanding new guarantees on waiting times in queues in local post offices, and has written to Alan Cook, the Managing Director of Post Office Limited, and to Roger Darlington, Chairman of Postwatch Greater London. (See letters below)
Kingston and Surbiton's MP, Edward Davey, has been angered by the failure of Post Office Limited to listen to local people, but has decided to keep up the pressure on the company, by launching what he has dubbed his "waiting time fight". Commenting he said:
"We can't let them get away with closing these offices and walking away, leaving local people to queue longer and longer.
"I know from my own experience in queues in both Surbiton's Victoria Road Post Office and New Malden's Crown Office, people are already waiting too long. People could soon be queuing out of the door, if the Post Office does nothing.
"The problem is that they often don't put on enough staff at the counters, and make the existing staff work under more and more pressure.
"My letter to the Managing Director of Post Office Limited makes yet another plea for them not to press ahead with closing local post offices, but if they do, that my constituents should get guarantees on maximum waiting times. I want PostWatch - who is supposed to help the post office user - to stand up for us on this occasion, so I want to meet them too.
"I've also reminded them that they have promised me they will re-open the post office branch at Tolworth Broadway. The latest news is promising that this could happen this summer, but I want to make sure they don't wriggle out of their commitment."
Letter to Alan Cook
Alan Cook CBE
Managing Director, Post Office Ltd
Royal Mail Group Ltd
148 Old Street
LONDON
EC1V 9HQ 30th May 2008
Re: Post office closures, guarantees on waiting times at Post Offices in Kingston and Surbiton and re-opening Tolworth Broadway Post Office
Following decisions made in the London section of your Network Change Programme, Post Office Limited are pressing ahead with the closure of 5 post offices in my constituency. I cannot stress enough how angry and disappointed local people are about this decision, and if there is anything else that can be done to review these decisions to close local post offices, even for only one of these 5 branches, I urge you to do this.
Where this cannot be done, I would ask you to give local people new guarantees about waiting times when they are queueing in local post offices. Please give as much detail as possible, including any targets you may already have for waiting times, perhaps in your contracts with agents, and how these are measured, monitored, assessed and enforced.
Let me explain why I think this is needed. For some years now, I have had complaints about the length of queues at some post offices, especially at Victoria Road, Surbiton, the main Kingston branch and in the Crown Post Office in New Malden. I have in the past raised these with you or your contractor and, occasionally, there have been subsequent improvements. Yet these have only ever been temporary. Indeed, after the last round of post office closures, the queues at the main Surbiton Post Office on Victoria Road got worse. While PostWatch undertook a "mystery shopper" exercise, and found the waits were not bad enough, I have continued to receive complaints and witnessed the queues myself.
With these latest closures, I am sure the queues at all remaining post offices will grow substantially, and I am unconvinced by reassurances received from Post Office Limited to date, about the ability of "receiving" or "alternative" post offices to cope. Your documents talk about these offices "capacity" - but that crucially depends on how many staff are put on counter duties, and our experience is that your local agents save money by under-staffing their counters, especially at the main branches in Kingston and Surbiton. I'm afraid to say I have also been told this occurs at the Crown Post Office in New Malden.
These long waiting times and long queues aren't just inconvenient. For the elderly and the disabled, who may have struggled the extra distance, they can be genuinely difficult to manage. That's why we need some guarantees on reasonable waiting times, and an explanation of how these times have been arrived at, and what will be done to enforce them.
I would be happy to meet one of your senior managers, and to discuss with them and PostWatch how we might even develop and pilot such an exercise, if one is not in place already. Indeed, I am copying this to PostWatch for their information and comment.
Finally, I wish to follow up, at your level, my concerns about the delays in the re-opening of the Post Office in Tolworth Broadwaybeen in long discussion with your staff about this office, and I'm grateful for their help. The problem for some time has been finding a sub-postmaster or sub-postmistress who could run the office again, as you wanted to keep it open. Indeed, your staff asked my opinion some time ago as to whether the office needed to be re-opened, and I was emphatic that it did.
The latest news I have is that someone has been found who meets your tests and who is trying to finalsie the details of leases and so on, so the office can be re-opened shortly. I would ask, through you, to ensure that Post Office Limited does everything it can to facilitate this process and speed it up, as we have been waiting for nearly two years. I look forward to being informed of the date for the re-opening.
Thank you for your assistance and I look forward to your early reply.
Yours sincerely,
Edward Davey MP
(Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)
Letter to Roger Darlington
Roger Darlington, Chairman,
Postwatch Greater London
28 - 30 Grosvenor Gardens
LONDON
SW1W 0TT 30th May 2008
Re: Post office closures, guarantees on waiting times at Post Offices in Kingston and Surbiton and re-opening Tolworth Broadway Post Office
Please find enclosed a copy of a letter sent to Alan Cook about post offices in my constituency and my proposal for a new guarantee on waiting times.
I would ask your opinion and assistance, and would be happy to meet.
Yours sincerely,
Edward Davey MP
(Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)
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