POST OFFICE SPECIAL 2

POSTAL WATCHDOG TO LOSE IT'S BARK

17-10-2006

The government will call today for the postal watchdog to be put down - just 24 hours after a minister warned that even more post offices are to close.

Later this morning, the Department of Trade and Industry is expected to announce the creation of a new "one-stop shop" for disgruntled customers, across a range of services, called Consumer Voice.

The new body will also absorb Energywatch and The Financial Services Consumer Panel, but it's the loss of Postwatch that is likely to prove most controversial.

Under the leadership of former Debenham's boss Peter Carr, who was chief executive from 2001 to late 2005, it proved it could bite as well as bark - and it wasn't afraid to sink its fangs into sensitive places.

Part of Carr's legacy was a long-running legal battle with Royal Mail, which (with the backing of its regulator Postcomm) had withheld around £40 million in refunds from disgruntled business customers despite failing all 15 of its performance targets in 2003/04.

Postwatch won a landmark legal ruling against the company earlier this year, which means that, subject to an appeal, the cash will have to be handed back.

It was great victory for the “little man”, but all very embarrassing for the government which, of course, is Royal Mail's sole shareholder - hence fears that the watchdog, instead of being given a pat on the head, is about to be neutered.

Officialdom's view of Peter Carr can be measured by the fact that, unusually for someone who held such an important public office, he's been bypassed for a gong.

The government's proposals might sound deceptively attractive to some. There is something to be said, for example, for their proposal to set up a series of binding ombudsman schemes to settle complaints, funded by the respective industries.

But what the new system will lose is the feature that actually makes it most useful; the specialist, expert knowledge that groups like Postwatch have, and which they can use to intervene directly on behalf of customers.

By merging into one, giant, centrally controlled organisation they will alsosacrifice their much treasured independence, and that makes them much easier to control - a muzzled watchdog in fact. And that's like having no watchdog at all.