Social factors may save some post offices

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 45

Social factors may save some post offices

PA Wellington The fact that many district post offices are not achieving a high real rate of return does not mean that the department will go around blithely closing them, says the director of district services, Mr Frank Williams. Social considerations would be taken into account, he said. Mr . Williams, was responding to a statement by the Opposition spokesman on the Post Office, Mr R. F. H. Maxwell, who claimed that only 262 of 876 offices were safe from closing under Government guidelines on business viability. Mr Maxwell said most post offices fell below the 10 per cent rate of return set for the State corporations. Matched with the two reports on the Post Office recently released, both of which recommended “wholesale closings,” the future for large numbers of post offices was bleak, he said. Mr Maxwell based his

statement on a question asked of the PostmasterGeneral, Mr Hunt, in Parliament. He wanted to know if the. Post Office had a policy of reviewing the business viability of offices and, if so, which offices have been subject to a review over the last two years, and with what result. He was told that 262 offices achieved more than a 10 per cent rate of return in 1984-85 (269 in 1983-84). Some 138 offices achieved between 1 per cent and 10 per cent (110 in 1983-84) and another 311 offices recovered direct costs (349), while 165 (160) did not.

Mr Williams said the Post Office had always reviewed business levels of offices. The reviews might downgrade district post offices to agency status, reduce hours, or ultimately result in closings. Reports on the Post Office indicated that it should move faster on the issue of closings, said Mr

Williams. People were more mobile today and the corner dairy was disappearing. The question had to be asked why some post offices in suburbs were not making a return, let alone a profit. The Post Office would look much more closely at keeping rural post offices, but may be more ruthless in urban areas where there were many offices in easy reach, said Mr Williams. He could not be specific about which offices would close: It was a case of “review and look, taste and tell.” The 10 per cent criterion was high and had been ignored by the Post Office in certain cases because of social needs, he said. "We are not going to go around blithely closing post offices just because they are not making 10 per cent.” The needs of elderly people and the distance between offices would be taken into account, said Mr Williams.