Signed Sealed Delivered: BBC2 documentary shows Post Office at war with itself

The Post Office is changing – but is it evolving or falling apart?
Change: the Post Office is facing difficult choices (Image: BBC / Blast! Films / Ryan McNamara)
BBC / Blast! Films / Ryan McNamara
Ben Travis29 July 2015

A Great British institution is in turmoil. The humble Post Office, once the focal point of our long-distance communication, is increasingly becoming a dinosaur in the lightning-fast world of email and instant messaging.

Simply put, we don’t really send letters any more – at least, not in the volume we used to. BBC documentary Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Inside the Post Office provides an inside look at the people most affected by this change - from those who have been tasked with stopping the Post Office from haemorrhaging money (up to £46 million a year, the series claims) without closing it entirely, to those who either own or work in a Post Office and who have been given a rather dire choice.

The grand plan for the Post Office to survive is to relocate branches into existing shops and businesses. It’s a move that won’t stop the service itself, but is bringing an end to the era of ‘your local Post Office’. Most crucially for workers, franchising a branch means that the government will no longer pay the £10,000 subsidy to Post Office employees, traditionally given out for providing a public service to a community. Workers can either decide to move their branch into a nearby shop and take a £10,000 pay cut, or leave it behind them for good.

It’s understandable that something has to be done - so many of the branches look drab and shabby, either with minimal queues because nobody uses them, or with long lines out the door because there isn’t enough staff to provide a speedy service. But for others – particularly, it seems, in rural areas – the Post Office is staunchly defended by both its staff and its users.

“It isn’t a job, it’s a way of life,” says one Post Office worker, unsure of whether to leave or brace for a huge reduction in pay.

“We can still make it as a Post Office, a stand-alone one,” argues another passionate worker, who describes his treatment as: “26 years, thanks very much, bugger off!”

Caroline Pritchard, Network Transformation Area Manager, is faced with the unenviable position of bearer of bad news, travelling across the country to inform workers and communities of the proposed changes. Seemingly understanding of people’s fears and frustrations, she’s forced time and again to resort to the go-to phrase: “It’s a modernisation process”. You can't blame people for being worried - by the third time you’ve heard it, it sounds like a Body Snatchers-esque sci-fi horror line.

All this work is being done to ensure that the Post Office survives in some form or another – but will we still recognise it by the time the process is complete?

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BBC Two, 9pm

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