The Post Office gave more details yesterday of plans to transform its network of branches across the UK, particularly in rural areas, over the next three years as part of a £1.34 billion investment programme.
The network wants to see more and more postal services being available as part of the normal offering from businesses such as local shops and garages.
Those premises involved will not have a separate post office counter, meaning customers wanting to access pensions or post a parcel will be in the same queue as somebody wanting to buy milk, bread, petrol or diesel.
These "PO Locals" are currently the subject of pilot schemes at 134 locations in Devon, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire and South Yorkshire, but Scotland will be included when the three-year programme starts its UK roll-out next summer. Other formats for delivering postal services are also being considered.
According to the Post Office, up to one in five existing UK post offices could be affected by the changes.
However, the Post Office categorically denied reports earlier this week that it was preparing to close 2000 small rural post offices throughout the UK next year, insisting: "No further Post Office closure programme is planned."
A Post Office Ltd spokeswoman said: "This is a Government investment and we are waiting on state aid clearance. At this stage it is not possible to say how many will be in Scotland or where they will be located.
"It is a voluntary programme. Subpostmasters will be asked if they are interested in exploring the new models for their branch."
Business owners, the spokeswomen said, would be offered 18-months' salary if they agreed to convert into a PO Local.
"Nobody will be paid just to close down," she added.
She said it was untrue that PO Locals would mean delivering a significantly reduced service.
"In fact Post Office Local branches already offer over 95% of the transactions that customers typically undertake at any Post Office outlet.
"The main products that the service doesn't offer – Motor Vehicle Licences, Passport applications, On-demand Bureau de Change – are already only available to customers at selected branches within the Post Office network."
She said that each PO Local operator and their staff would be fully trained by Post Office Ltd. It would then be the responsibility of the operator to train any staff they subsequently employed.
Annie McGovern, postal expert at Consumer Focus Scotland, said it may lead to a gap in services.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article