Post offices and social value

Today we have the news that between "about 2,500 and 3,000 post offices - most in rural areas - face phased closure." Royal Mail hints at a whopping 10,000 possible closures. The government, for its part, "recognises the wider social role of the Post Office in communities" according to the Guardian and other sources.

The public subsidy is apparently already substantial - well, probably, if we knew how to measure 'substantial'. Some millions of pounds sterling are in one side of the balance: what's in the other scale?

Sorry, the scale only measures pounds, not social experience. It depends on how as a society we value social interaction, especially the value of purpose and contact for those who may feel themselves to be on the periphery. I think that locally-applicable policies affecting the availability of amenities and resources like this should be risk-assessed for the extent to which they might damage informal social networks. (What do you mean we can't do that? Has it been tried? No, because the language - 'gossip,' community,' 'contact' - is not regarded as legitimate. So can we change the language, please.)

It also depends on what other (formally measurable) contributions to the local economy might be made by post offices. And here's a report published by the New Economics Foundation just the other day, on the economic contribution of post offices in urban areas based on a study in Manchester.

• For every £10 earned in income, the post office generates £16.20 for its local economy – including £6.20 in direct spending on local goods and services.
• Based on in-depth analysis of Manchester post offices, this means that each post office contributes in the region of £310,000 to the local economy each year, of which £120,000 is direct spending on local goods and services.
• In addition, nef’s analysis reveals that each post office saves small businesses in their direct vicinity in the region of £270,000 each year.

Social capital is unfortunately unpopular at the moment, but this may become a bit of a social policy crisis because the voice of economic management seems to be saying, 'the level of public subsidy is unsustainable'. So we need some creative reinvention of the role of individual post offices within the network, some recognition of their wider economic impact, and more than just stamp-licking lip-service for the value of the social role. Qualitative evidence from nef’s survey

emphasises the vital and overlooked social services role played by Post Offices.  This evidence supports previous research which found that half of the subpostmasters in disadvantaged areas keep an eye out for between 20 and 50 vulnerable customers.

And here's a comment from the BBC news forum to illustrate the impact of a closure:

We lost our local post office which was within walking distance two years ago... It has definitely impacted on our community here - at the old post office we used to go there to do other things and catch up on the local gossip. We can't do that now.

The BBC has a page on 'How to set up a community-run post office' here.

Comments

[ian]

With that sort of value generated, there must be some way to capture it and use it to support the retention of these services locally surely? Perhaps the problem lies in the exclusive contracts the PO has to provide some of these services? If that monopoly wasn't there than maybe others could step in.

[Cindy]

The problem with the market economy is, they only look at money value. Not human value.

The problem with politicians is, most of them look at personal gains rather than community benefits.

Something I found accidentally called The Buddist Economy. This document explains why things are falling apart in our society.