Ministers wish to flip the Put up Workplace right into a co-operative and have requested enterprise consultants to research methods of handing management of the 364-year-old establishment over to the subpostmasters who function it.
Administration consultants have been requested to discover methods to show the scandal-hit physique over to an employee-owned mutual, much like the best way the John Lewis Partnership is run, Sky Information reported. The Division of Enterprise and Commerce engaged Boston Consulting Group to hold out a business examine of the way forward for the Put up Workplace.
The work is claimed to be at an early stage however a report shall be handed to Jonathan Reynolds, the enterprise secretary, inside months.
Requires a evaluation of the Put up Workplace have grown for the reason that wrongful conviction of lots of of subpostmasters accused of stealing money from their branches.
The circumstances, labelled the UK’s greatest miscarriage of justice, sparked nationwide anger after being portrayed within the ITV tv drama Mr Bates vs the Put up Workplace.
Final night time, campaigner Alan Bates solid doubt on the plan. “I personally don’t assume this may work. At the moment, the federal government subsidises it and can proceed to must assist it. They’ll’t simply give it to the subpostmasters and say: ‘Right here you go, mate’.
“I don’t assume mutualisation goes to avoid wasting the federal government or the taxpayer big quantities of cash as a result of it’s going to be subsidising the Put up Workplace for a few years as soon as it will get off the bottom, irrespective of how good the scheme is,” he advised the Sunday Instances.
James Arbuthnot, who additionally campaigned for justice, expressed doubts about subpostmasters’ potential to afford it.
Final yr the Put up Workplace misplaced about £76m and has liabilities of £799m.
A public inquiry into the Put up Workplace miscarriages of justice has been advised {that a} alternative for the Horizon IT system on the coronary heart of the scandal may value as much as £1.1bn.
Earlier governments have examined comparable plans however deserted them within the face of issues.
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Liam Byrne, chair of the parliamentary enterprise choose committee, mentioned mutualisation was an possibility with plenty of potential.
Most put up places of work generate their revenues by offering a wide range of authorities companies, which have tightly managed revenue margins.
Its greater than 11,600 sub-post places of work are privately run as franchise operations of the Put up Workplace.
A evaluation of the Put up Workplace by the consulting agency Teneo is anticipated to suggest shrinking instantly employed employees from 3,500 to 1,000.
