Post Office Limited

Post Office Limited, commonly known as the Post Office, is a retail post office company in the United Kingdom that provides a wide range of postal and non-postal related products including postage stamps, banking, insurance, bureau de change and identity verification services to the public through its nationwide network of around 11,500 post office branches. Most of these branch post offices (c. 99%) are run by franchise partners or by independent business people known as subpostmasters; Post Office Limited directly manages the remaining 1%, known as Crown post offices.

Since 2020, a public enquiry has been under way into the company's actions which led to between 700 and 900 subpostmasters being wrongfully prosecuted for financial crimes, in what has been described by the Criminal Cases Review Commission as "the biggest single series of wrongful convictions in British legal history".

History
Post Office branches, along with the Royal Mail delivery service, were formerly part of the General Post Office and, after the passage of the Post Office Act 1969, the Post Office, a statutory corporation. Post Office Counters Limited was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Post Office in 1987. The first managing director of Post Office Counters was John Roberts, who took up the post in 1987. A former civil servant, Richard Dykes, took over as managing director of Post Office Counters in September 1993. Dykes was succeeded in May 1996 by Stuart Sweetman, who continued to serve in that role until his retirement in November 2001.

After the Post Office statutory corporation was changed to a public company, Royal Mail Group, in 2001, Post Office Counters Limited became Post Office Limited. In 2002, David Mills was appointed as chief executive of Post Office Limited, a newly created role. Mills stepped down at the end of 2005. His successor, Alan Cook, was appointed with the title of managing director in January 2006. Cook had previously been chief executive of National Savings & Investments.

With declining mail usage, Post Office Limited had chronic losses, with a reported £102 million lost in 2006, raising concerns in the media regarding its ability as a company to operate efficiently. Minutes of a board meeting in April 2006 state that the company was insolvent and unable to meet its future debts. Plans to cut the £150m-a-year subsidy for rural post offices led to the announcement that 2,500 local post offices were to be closed during 2007.

In 2007, the government gave a £1.7 billion subsidy to Royal Mail Group so that it could turn a profit by 2011. This was to be used to invest across the whole network of Royal Mail, Post Office Limited, and Parcelforce. Eighty-five Crown post offices were closed, 70 of which were sold to WHSmith. This followed a trial of six Post Office outlets in WHSmith stores. WHSmith was expected to make up to £2.5 million extra in annual profit. 2,500 sub-post offices closed between 2008 and 2009. Redundancy packages were provided from public funding (subpostmasters were paid over 20 months salary, roughly £65,000 each).

In 2010, David Smith succeeded Alan Cook as managing director. Smith had previously been managing director of Parcelforce, another Royal Mail subsidiary. In November 2010, the government committed £1.34 billion of funding up to 2015 to Post Office Limited to enable it to modernise the Post Office network.

As part of the Postal Services Act 2011, Post Office Limited became independent of Royal Mail Group on 1 April 2012 and, in the same month, Paula Vennells was appointed as its chief executive; she had been with Post Office Limited since 2007 as the network director. The first chair of the board of the new company was Alice Perkins, who had for a time led human resources management in the Civil Service. A ten-year inter-business agreement was signed between Royal Mail and Post Office Limited to allow post offices to continue issuing stamps, and handling letters and parcels for Royal Mail. The Act also contained the option for Post Office Limited to become a mutual organisation in the future.

In February 2013, Post Office Limited announced it was planning to move around seventy of its Crown post offices into shops. This would reduce the Crown network, which it stated was losing £40 million a year, to around 300. In November 2013, the government committed an additional £640 million of funding for 2015 to 2018 to allow Post Office Limited to complete its network modernisation. In June 2015, the Post Office launched its own mobile virtual network operator service, Post Office Mobile. However, in August 2016 it decided "to conclude the trial as the results did not give us sufficient confidence that mobile will contribute to our goal of commercial sustainability". In April 2016, the Post Office agreed to hand over up to 61 more branches to WHSmith in a 10-year deal. The deal was condemned as "blatant back-door privatisation" by the Communications Workers Union. In 2018, the Post Office acquired Payzone's UK bill payment business after it was split from Payzone Ireland, to expand its bill payment network.

Perkins stood down as chair in July 2015 and was replaced in October of that year by Tim Parker, a businessman who had led and restructured a number of companies. He at first worked one-and-a-half days a week, reducing to two days a month in November 2017. Speaking in 2024, Parker described a business in "deep crisis": "The Post Office has a turnover of just under £1 billion, which makes it a sort of medium-sized company, but in fact it is an incredibly complex business: it's complex because it operates a network of around 11,500 sites; it's complex because it has a very wide range of products; it's complex also because it deals with cash, and cash has a big security element to it; it's complex because it's in the public sector. [...] This is a business which had absorbed billions of pounds of taxpayers money and was still losing money. It was a business that faced significant challenges because it had an exclusive arrangement with the Royal Mail, and the Royal Mail itself was suffering from increasing competition in the parcels market and a declining letters market. The Post Office had previously had a significant amount of business from the Government, so driving licences, benefits, that kind of thing. That had all moved online and so the Post Office was bereft a significant chunk of its contribution. The Post Office had a range of products which it attempted to sell, with varying degrees of success, and it also had a very complex structure in terms of its overheads and management."

In February 2019, the Post Office announced that Paula Vennells would leave her role as CEO to become chair of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. It was subsequently confirmed that the new CEO would be the former Nisa CEO Nick Read.

In February 2021, the Post Office agreed to sell its broadband and home phone services to Shell Energy and exit the telecoms market. The purchase price was around £80million, with around 500,000 customers transferring to the new provider.

Parker completed a second term as chair in September 2022. He was replaced in December by Henry Staunton, who had held senior board roles at a number of companies and had chaired WHSmith until June of that year. He was removed on 27 January 2024, following disagreements with the Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch on matters including the appointment of a new independent director.

In April 2024, Post Office Chief Executive Nick Read was "exonerated of all the misconduct allegations" in relation to claims made by a whistleblower, revealed in parliament. This followed an investigation by an external barrister.

Services


As of March 2022 there were 11,635 post office branches across the UK, of which 117 were directly managed by Post Office Limited (known as Crown post office branches). The majority of other branches (9,617 in total) were run either by franchise partners or by local subpostmasters (who may be members of the National Federation of SubPostmasters or the CWU Postmasters Branch); these are known as Agency post office branches. The remaining 1,901 branches (making up 16% of the network) were what are known as 'outreach services': these are typically small, part-time branches, perhaps making use of a mobile van or a village hall.

The Post Office rolled out the 'ParcelShop' scheme in Summer 2019, allowing retail stores to accept Royal Mail Internet returns, in order to expand Post Office facilities.

In some villages an outreach service is provided in village halls or shops. There are also "mobile post offices" using converted vans which travel between rural areas.

Postal services
The Post Office provides information on services and accepts postal items and payment on behalf of the two collection and delivery divisions of Royal Mail Group, Royal Mail and Parcelforce. These include a variety of new ordinary and guaranteed services both for delivery within the United Kingdom and to international destinations. Postage stamps (including commemorative stamps and other philatelic items) are sold, while applications for redirection of mail are accepted on behalf of Royal Mail. Post Office Local Collect is a scheme whereby undelivered mail can be redirected at customer request to a post office for convenient collection. Poste restante mail can also be held for collection by people travelling.

Financial services
The Post Office provides credit cards, insurance products, mortgages, access to high street banking services and savings through the Post Office Money umbrella brand which was launched in 2015. Most Post Office Money branded products are provided by Bank of Ireland (UK) plc with Post Office Limited acting as an appointed representative and credit broker. However, with the sale of the Bank of Ireland's UK assets to Jaja Finance in 2019, Post Office branded Credit Cards are now issued by Capital One UK. Life insurance is provided in partnership with Neilson Financial Services

Branch banking
Personal banking services are offered on behalf of a number of "partner banks" that the Post Office has agreements with. Although different services are available on behalf of different institutions, these may include cash withdrawals, paying in cash and cheques, and balance enquiries. Some post offices also have cash machines, mainly provided by Bank of Ireland. Business banking services are also offered for customers of twenty different UK banks.

Bill payments
A number of bill payments can be accepted on behalf of a variety of organisations including utilities, local authorities and others. These are in the form of automated payments (barcoded bills, swipe cards, key charging). The Santander Transcash system, which had been a Girobank service, enabled manual bill payment transactions, but this service was discontinued by Santander in December 2017.

Directory enquiries
Post Office also runs its own flat-rate 118 Directory Enquiries service (118 855). Mobile phone top-ups are also available in Post Office branches on behalf of all the major UK mobile networks.

ID services
A passport check-and-send service is available for passport applications, where the post office staff check that a passport application is filled in correctly and has an acceptable photograph accompanying it. The service is not affiliated with HM Passport Office. Check-and-send service is not guaranteed service. The Post Office also offer a photocard driving licence renewal service.

Selected branches issue International Driving Permits. In 2019, availability of this service was expanded from 89 to approximately 2,500 branches due to increased demand associated with the possibility of a "no deal" Brexit.

Horizon scandal
In April 2015, the BBC described a confidential report that alleged that the Post Office had made 'failings' with regard to accounting issues with its Horizon IT system, which were identified by subpostmasters as early as 2000. The article claimed that an independent investigation by forensic accountants Second Sight had found that the Post Office had failed to identify the root cause of accounting shortfalls in many cases before launching court proceedings against subpostmasters. The shortfalls could have been caused by criminals using malicious software, by IT systems or by human error, the report said. An earlier article by the BBC had claimed that a confidential report contained allegations that the Post Office had refused to hand over documents that the accountants felt they needed to investigate properly, that training was not good enough, that equipment was outdated, and that power cuts and communication problems had made things worse.

In 2019, the Post Office was lambasted by the High Court for its 'institutional obstinacy or refusal to consider' that its Horizon computer system might be flawed. The judge, Mr Justice Fraser, characterised this stance as "the 21st-century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat." In spite of the court action against its subpostmasters, which was described by a judge as "aggressive and, literally, dismissive", the Post Office's chief executive Paula Vennells, who had in the meantime left the Post Office and taken up posts in the NHS and the Cabinet Office, was controversially awarded a CBE in the 2019 New Year Honours for "services to the Post Office and to charity". On 19 March 2020 she was harshly criticised in the House of Commons, particularly by Kevan Jones, MP for North Durham, who said:

"Obviously, as a board member she knew what was going on, including the strategy in the court case and the bugs in the system. What happened? She got a CBE in the new year's honours list for services to the Post Office. That is just rubbing salt into the wounds of these innocent people. There is a case for her having that honour removed, and I would like to know how she got it in the first place when the court case is ongoing. Added to that, she is now chair of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Again, I would like to know why and what due diligence was done on her as an individual."

On 8 January 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesman said he would "strongly support" the Honours Forfeiture Committee if it decided to look at removing Vennells's CBE appointment. Vennells issued a statement on 9 January 2024, stating that she would "return my CBE with immediate effect". This had no formal effect, as only the monarch, on the advice of the Honours Forfeiture Committee, can annul honours. Vennells's appointment as CBE was formally revoked by King Charles III on 23 February for "bringing the honours system into disrepute".