Postal reforms
Sir: Your readers would be wrong to conclude from Mr Franks's letter (27 •February) that there was no 'postal network' in 1836. A table in H. Joyce's History of the Post Office (1893, page 400) shows that in 1821 a letter despatched from London at 8 pm would reach Birm- ingham, Bristol or Gloucester by 10 am the following morning, Dover or Portsmouth by 6.45 am. Chester would be reached by 10.50 pm the following evening. Almost as good as second-class post today. Regular posts to Scotland, Ireland, Plymouth and Dover existed from at least the early seventeenth cen- tury, and by 1680 there was a penny post within the London area. Sort- ing offices were supplied with stamps bearing their own initial letters and denoting the several hours of the day. 'If in the busy parts of the capital they were not delivered within little more than an hour from the time denoted by the impression, the public were en- couraged to complain' (page 38). In considering the recent postal dispute one could do worse than recall the words of the present Earl of Selborne who as Lord Wolmer wrote a book called Post Office Reform in 1932 which, so far as I am aware, is the only 'political' book on the Post Office written in modern times though there are important references to his time as Postmaster-General in Reginald Bevins's book The Greasy Pole. Lord Wolmer was Assistant PMG in the 'twenties, but his words have an astonishingly up-to-date ring about them and I for one was amazed to find on re-reading the book that many of his suggestions, including even the title of the new Post Office Corporation, appear to have been, somewhat tardily it may seem, adopted. Some of his more important criticisms however, do not seem to have been met in the drafting of the new Post Office Act, and as I believe they may lie at the root of the present troubles, I hope that you will allow me space to reproduce and comment upon them.
At nage 211 he stated: 'To a very definite extent the disgruntled con- dition of the Post Office staff is the fault of the Department . . . high wages do not produce contentment among the staff any more than the restoration of penny postage would produce contentment in the public'. I believe that the recent dispute too, was due more to a slump in morale among Post Office staff than to discontent about pay. The dis- missal of Lord Hall, who for all his faults seems to have been a very popular chairman, so soon after taking office has, I think, contrib- uted to this loss of confidence as has the changeover to the new 'nationalised industry' status im- posed by the setting up of the new corporation. Many postmen feel, believe, that they have lost their privileged status as civil servants without any real compensatory gain and if people lose prestige they tend to demand more money.
A second contrast drawn by Lord Wolmer was that when he moved from the Board of Trade to the Post Office 'instead of experts in
administration one found amateurs in business, instead of complete cohesion one found a large measure of confusion, instead of harmony there was discord, instead of a suc- cession of political chiefs there had been a series of Parliamentary figureheads. Instead of a Depart- ment that could make its voice felt in Cabinet, there was an appendage of the Treasury'. These criticisms have now been met by a transfer of functions from the Postmaster- General (re-named Minister for Posts and Telecommunications) to the new Post Office Corporation, but the criticism remains that so important a subject for the wel- fare of the community should have a voice in the cabinet. While the Minister for Posts and Telecom- munications remains a junior mem- ber of the government, what hope does one have that he will not, like his predecessors as Postmaster- General, be shifted from his post to higher rank almost as soon as he has begun to learn his job? This process of shifting and transfer has become a menace to efficient administration, even within the Civil Service itself, where per- manent secretaries seem to shift around between departments almost as frequently as their political chiefs, but in the Post Office it has been much more of a menace than elsewhere.
In a more direct reference to staff relations, Lord Wolmer advo- cated 'a profit-sharing system in which all ranks should benefit' and 'the establishment of a new authority for the examination of complaints by the public and the staff against the Post Office'. So far as I am aware neither of these suggestions has been adopted (the Post Office Users Council seems to cover only the public's relations with the Post Office). A study of the Post Office 4kct 1969 shows that there is no reference to staff ques- tions as such in the text of the Act itself (beyond provisions for pen- sions) and such fundamental questions as union recognition and pay scales, so important in this modern world, are relegated to the small print of one of the schedules. Surely a section should have been written into the Act itself imposing on management the duty of con- sultation and the active promotion of harmonious staff relations with all ranks in the Post Office? In my brief experience of working for the Post Office 1 was struck above all by the lack of consultation with the man on the floor on matters affect- ing his daily work. The result was that directives were frequently issued which were based on in- adequate knowledge, and, I must add, often released to the press before the workers in the industry itself were made aware of their content.
Of course no organisation is perfect, but in my belief there must be real efforts made by man- agement to improve consultation within the Post Office before there can be any real hope of improving morale within it.
These are not matters, Sir, which should normally be aired in the col- umns even of so esteemed a journal as your own. I attempt to air them only Fecause I am convinced that the only way to secure happier relations within the Post Office will be to convince postmen that they will genuinely be receiving a 'new deal' in the future and that the Post Office will no longer be, as it has been in the past, the cinderella of public services, taken for granted and its workers largely forgotten. This is not a question of money, but of morale.
George Chowdharay-Best 174 Clay Hill Road, Basildon, Essex
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