Post Office Card Accounts
The final item of business today is a members' business debate on motion S2M-4101, in the name of Richard Lochhead, on Post Office card accounts. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes the recent announcement that Post Office card accounts are to be phased out by 2010; notes that this news has come as a shock to pension and benefits claimants in north-east Scotland, many of whom rely on the service especially where there are no local bank branches, as well as to Post Office staff who view the scheme as a vital service; believes that the phasing out of this service could put the future of some rural post offices in severe jeopardy and lead to many of these lifeline services being lost to communities already being stripped of other vital services; supports the National Federation of SubPostmasters campaign to have Post Office card accounts retained, and considers that the Scottish Executive should make appropriate representations to the UK Government on behalf of Post Office card account users in Scotland.
It gives me great pleasure to open this debate, which is on a matter of great importance to many people in Scotland. As is customary, I begin by thanking all those who have signed the motion. More than 32 members have signed it, from every party in the chamber bar the Labour Party.
The debate concerns this little card that I have in my hand. It brings huge benefits to hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland. Approximately half a million benefit payments are made by the Department for Work and Pensions and other Government departments into Post Office card accounts in Scotland. Although some Scots receive more than one payment, it is true to say that hundreds of thousands of people hold such accounts in post offices the length and breadth of Scotland.
The system allows the Government to pay benefits directly into people's card accounts. People can then go to their local post office and withdraw their benefits in their local community. A pamphlet given to people who wish to apply for an account tells them that the account is a "simple and convenient" way to manage their money. Benefit claimants, Post Office staff and others are absolutely furious that the Department for Work and Pensions has decided that, in 2010, the accounts will cease to exist. The hundreds of thousands of Scots who hold these accounts feel betrayed and deceived. Many of the more vulnerable are fearful of how they will cope.
The many people who hold these accounts thought that the Government would recognise the value of the service, not only to people who hold the accounts but to wider society—particularly rural communities where the viability of the local post office will be jeopardised.
The people who opened these accounts were never told that the service would be temporary. They thought that it would be permanent and they welcomed that. However, the Government's message appears to be that, no matter what people think, and no matter how much they value their Post Office accounts, they will have to open bank accounts and like it or lump it. There will be no other choice.
The account holders thought that the Government might place the interests of the wider community above the interests of high street banks. They thought that the Government recognised that giving business to high street banks instead of to our post office network would undermine that network—again, particularly affecting rural communities and the many villages and towns that do not want important facilities such as post offices to disappear. Many rural communities have already lost banks and shops and sometimes schools. The last thing that people want is the viability of the post office network to be further undermined.
Post Office card accounts are popular for various reasons. First, many people who hold them like the idea of having their benefits paid into a separate account rather than having them paid into their main bank account because that helps them to budget and manage their finances. Only last week, I turned up at the sub-post office in Methlick in Aberdeenshire, where I was met by several customers who were waiting to discuss their fears about the closure of such accounts. One of their fears was that they would lose the ability to manage their benefits as effectively as possible.
The proposal to pay benefits into bank accounts means that many people will not be able to withdraw cash locally because many rural communities do not have the option of using a local bank. We all know that many banks on constituency high streets have closed in recent years. It might be possible to withdraw cash from a local autobank, if there happens to be one in a local shop and the shop is still open, but in some of our more remote rural communities it often costs £1.75 to use such autobanks. We must remember that many of the more vulnerable members of society are holders of Post Office card accounts. To someone who is on a low weekly income, such as a pensioner, £1.75 is a lot of money and they should not be asked to pay such a sum.
Citizens Advice Scotland has expressed great concern about the impact on financial inclusion if people who do not have bank accounts are not able to use Post Office card accounts in the future. Members were all sent a copy of that organisation's briefing and I am sure that many members will quote from it. The fact that 12 per cent of Scotland's population do not have bank accounts means that many people rely heavily on the Post Office card accounts that they hold at their local post offices.
Maintaining the viability of the local post office network in our rural communities by ensuring that it continues to have business is another important issue. I know that sub-postmasters throughout Aberdeenshire and north-east Scotland—I am sure that many other members have spoken to sub-postmasters in their areas—fear that if Post Office card accounts are lost in the years ahead, the viability of their post offices will be undermined and even more community post offices will be lost. The proposal could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
I will outline what action must be taken. First, we should not allow the Department for Work and Pensions to cease the relevant contract in 2010; the announcement that it would do so came as a bolt out of the blue. The existing contract should be enhanced and should be used to help to modernise our post office network. More vulnerable members of the public should be able to use Post Office card accounts for direct debits because, for example, that would allow them to get discounts on their energy bills, which have rocketed over recent years. Such people have as much right as the rest of us to access such discounts.
The DWP should be told to stop undermining our post office network by persuading people to opt for bank accounts instead. That practice must come to an end. The Government in London must acknowledge the wider benefits to society that Post Office card accounts bring and the Scottish ministers must make the firmest and most vigorous representations to it about saving those accounts and must express their concern to United Kingdom ministers about a proposal that will remove the many benefits that accrue to people in Scotland from having access to them. Most important, the minister must stand up at the end of the debate and declare her support, and that of the Scottish Government, for maintaining Post Office card accounts. She must recognise their value and pledge that she will pick up the cudgels on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of customers in Scotland's communities who both rely on those accounts and accrue many benefits from doing so.
I congratulate Richard Lochhead on securing the debate and wish him a fond farewell from the Parliament—I will not say more than that.
I am glad that we are having a debate on such an important subject, which was debated at Westminster yesterday. We cannot divorce the issues to do with the card from the survival of post offices in suburban and rural areas. There are enough barriers to getting a card in the first place. Many people have to jump through all sorts of hoops. According to a figure that was cited yesterday, there are 22 steps to getting a card. I am sure that the system could have been made a little simpler. In the past, the Conservatives came up with a swipe card that had the potential to be more flexible, but it seems to have been ignored by the Department for Work and Pensions.
Richard Lochhead mentioned access to banking services, which is becoming ever more difficult. It is important that people have access to such services.
When I was a local councillor, Post Office Counters was very helpful in assisting the survival of a small sub-post office. It resited it in a Co-operative village store; indeed, it expanded services, which made the community even more viable. People did not have to pay for a taxi to go to a local town to get hold of their pension or benefits.
We need to look more closely at the ways in which we can support communities. The Deputy Prime Minister has lost any street cred that he may have had in terms of his support for communities and the more vulnerable in our society. With this announcement, it has all gone out of the window.
The main theme of Citizens Advice Scotland in all of this is inclusion, but it has also highlighted the inconsistencies in the system. I agree with CAS that the role that the card plays could be expanded; all benefits should be paid through the Post Office card account. It is vital that people can access their money. The beauty of the card system is that someone cannot get into debt. I note the point that Richard Lochhead made about direct debits, which always have to be planned. Perhaps they should be made weekly. In that way, people would not get a shock when a large amount of money was withdrawn from their benefit payments.
All in all, the debate is about community. We need to debate how the involvement and facilities of the Scottish Parliament can be brought to bear on a matter that is only partly related to this Parliament. That does not need to stop us from joining together and holding hands on the issue.
Many people cannot afford a car nowadays. They may not even have a bus service in their part of the country or be able to go long distances to access banking services or their benefits. If the Government cannot continue to supply benefits in cash, is it really going to involve people in charges to go somewhere where they will be charged again to access what, in many cases, is not a large amount of money?
Parliamentarians at Westminster have had good debates on the subject; I have read the Hansard reports. There is cross-party support for the extension and expansion of the POCA scheme. I hope to hear a fairly positive response from the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development tonight, although I am well aware that all of this is not in her gift to give. I hope that she is supportive of the notion that, if we cannot retain the POCA system in Scotland, we will consider the implementation of a version that can be used in Scotland.
Each year, some 6,500 pensions and benefits are paid out in post offices in the constituency of Ross, Skye and Inverness West and 5,400 are paid out in the constituency of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. In Springburn, 14,000 of those same benefits are paid out in post offices. Across the country, that adds up to a large number of people who rely on our post offices and, in particular, on their Post Office card account.
I have visited post offices in various parts of the Highlands in my region. The pattern that is emerging is consistent, whether one hears the account from customers or from staff. When pension books were abolished, business at sub-post offices dropped by some two thirds; pensioners stopped using their post office. In time, pensioners got used to using their card accounts, but this system is now also under threat of abolition, in 2010. The authorities could not have done more to undermine people's confidence in their ability to access payments through their local post offices.
Of course, more categories of allowance could be paid through the Post Office card account system. For example, I understand that local housing allowances and educational maintenance allowances could be paid in this way. Why has the Government not implemented that? If that were to happen, the POCA system could become very viable.
Richard Lochhead and David Davidson outlined the difficulties that are inherent in setting up a POCA. Constituents and friends have had the greatest of difficulties in that regard; dozens of letters flew back and forth before their accounts were finally set up. It seems almost as if the Government has a deliberate policy of putting people off these accounts.
The friends in question live in the village of Rosehall in Sutherland. If there was a reduction in its business, the post office in the village would close, as would the local shop, which is attached to it. If that were to happen, pensioners and benefit claimants in Rosehall would have to travel nine miles to the bank in Lairg or 13 miles to Ardgye to use a cashline machine. As Richard Lochhead said, they would also have to pay £1.75 to access their money. That would be ridiculous.
Sparsely populated areas are put under double pressure, and poorer people on low incomes who try to use their local post offices, which are part of the social fabric, are being dissuaded from doing so. People in the north face surcharges from private carriers to bring goods to the north, and post offices are being cherry picked because of the way in which privatisation is being brought in. We are seeing yet another nail being driven into the heart of the system, and it is essential that we get cross-party support in Scotland and that we look to the minister to tell us exactly how she is going to deal with the Department for Work and Pensions to represent the views expressed by what I hope is the united voice of people here.
It is not too late. It is not yet 2010. People in many a community are only too delighted to see that we are discussing the issue. I thank Richard Lochhead for securing this evening's debate, and I hope that members across the Parliament have signed his motion.
Presiding Officer, I beg your permission to leave, as I have a pressing engagement, but I shall read the minister's response in due course.
Richard Lochhead has secured an important debate on an issue that could have a severe impact, once again, on more vulnerable people and on those who live in rural areas.
The background to the debate has been well aired, but such is the guile with which the matter has been progressed that it needs constant highlighting. When the Post Office card account was introduced, it was never thought of as a temporary initiative. For any of us who were involved on behalf of families or friends, it was a new system to replace the old. Maybe we, or I, did not look at the small print, but I well remember having to persuade my elderly neighbour that the new card account would not change her ability to collect her pension at our local village post office.
However, the post office in our village of Auchterhouse closed down many years ago, so we depend on the much larger neighbouring village of Birkhill and Muirhead. The post office there shares its premises with a greatly valued chemist and pharmacy, which services a busy health centre just around the corner. A major campaign was launched several years ago, when the small but busy pharmacy was under threat. Its closure would have led to the closure of the post office, so the less mobile and those most in need of local services would have suffered most. Closure would also have added considerably to climate change, as many more vehicle miles would have been needed to get to Dundee to collect prescriptions. Our post office is not unusual. Most local branches share premises with other businesses.
Withdrawal of the Post Office's contract with the Department for Work and Pensions will mean a potential loss of £1 billion over seven years. That is not a significant amount in terms of Government money, but it is highly significant when just a small movement of trade away from those small businesses could sound their death knell. Trading margins can be low in small retail businesses, but we do not put a price on service to the community. Closure of small businesses in the local community is a loss not only to the staff but to the whole community. We are all the poorer when local services are lost.
One has to question the lack of joined-up thinking in the proposals when there is so much rhetoric on social inclusion, regeneration and rural repopulation—not to mention climate change and oil depletion. Does anyone put a price on the consequences of such decisions? It is not exactly a huge amount of money in Government spending terms, and I am sure that we could all identify a number of more wasteful projects or policies where we could make substantial savings—enough, probably, to open many of the recently closed branches.
In its informative briefing, Citizens Advice Scotland was right not only to be forthright in its criticism of the decision but to plan pragmatically for the withdrawal of the card accounts. CAS is realistic enough to know that, however loud and right the protest is, the decision has probably been made, so I support that organisation's forward thinking to ensure that the transfer to opening a basic bank account is as easy and stress free as possible. However, as has been pointed out, it must be recognised that banks are becoming equally scarce and inaccessible for the less mobile. With the huge rise in internet banking, I fear that the die is cast for many branches, especially in the more remote rural areas. We are failing to serve our people in the best way.
I congratulate Richard Lochhead on securing this timely debate.
It is interesting that most members' speeches have focused on rural areas. I think that that is a mistake, because this is not only a rural issue; it is also an issue for people who live in urban areas. I will explain why. In rural areas, the Post Office card account has an important role in supporting the post office network and preserving a lynchpin source of economic and retail activity in communities, but for its users it is an important instrument by which people can manage their money.
One of the great paradoxes in our society is that we expect the most sophisticated money management of the people who have least money. If I or other members here run out of money and realise that we will have to spend a little bit more, we will go to a cash machine, stick our card in and get the money out. We will not think too much about it. If we do, it might be a momentary twinge that we may have to account to our spouse when he or she does the accounts at the end of the month. I do that, even if colleagues do not.
For people with less money, however, basic accounting and the management of money is a constant and enduring challenge. In the old days, for people without much money, the most effective way of accounting was jam-jar accounting. People had a set of jam jars on the sideboard and they put money in the jam jar for the rent, for the tallyman, for the insurance policy and so on. They could see what they were doing.
The principle of jam-jar accounting is the one that the Post Office card account supports. People know that, each month, there will be a certain amount of money in the electronic jam jar and that they can spend it in the way that they plan. That is the value of this instrument: it helps people to manage their money. The important point is that the money is not in one big pot—they can think of it as being in different little pots that they can use for different purposes.
The POCA is one example—it is by no means the only one—of the Government approaching something in the wrong way. It had an open tender among financial organisations to establish the infrastructure for the POCA. An American bank won the contract, but it was not one of the major banks that already supply bank accounts to people the length and breadth of the British isles that could, at a relatively small marginal cost, have provided the service within the context of their overall computer processing systems.
The contract went to a US bank that had no track record of providing processing services in the United Kingdom. The cost of providing the service was substantially higher than it would have been if the Government had sat round the table with the existing banks and co-operatively got them to provide a service. That is one reason why the Government has, almost perversely, sought to make it difficult for people to have the accounts—so the accounts wither on the vine and the Government does not have to provide economic support for them.
As I represent a rural area, I join colleagues in saying that in rural areas we value the post office above almost any other high street activity. We must make every effort to aggregate remaining economic activity into post offices. Banks will continue to close. I know that one branch of a bank closed because it was doing only 20 transactions a week. Other branches are doing a similarly low number of transactions. The post office remains important and this card remains important to many people. I hope that the minister can find a way, within the limits of the powers of this Parliament, to help people to preserve this card.
I congratulate Richard Lochhead on securing the debate. On a personal level, I wish him well as he enters the comparatively uncharted territory of a by-election.
It is imperative that we urge Westminster to extend the contract for Post Office card accounts past 2010. If we stand aside and allow the contract to expire, we will be held responsible for the closure of countless post offices, particularly in rural areas and poor urban areas.
When the pension collection system was switched from books to card accounts, it caused great inconvenience to many elderly people, many of whom were confused by the new system. Many distrusted the new card system and were frustrated that it would not provide a monthly account statement. However, at least they were still able to pick up their pensions at the post office. Now, if we are not careful, we will again force change on the most vulnerable people in society—pensioners and people on benefits. We will be asking people, especially in constituencies such as mine—Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross—to travel far from home to collect their pensions at a bank.
As Rob Gibson said, post offices are the hubs of small rural communities, but banks are often many miles apart in the Highlands and there is no guarantee that pensioners, who often no longer drive, will have a bank anywhere near them from which they can collect their pensions. My former leader, Charles Kennedy, said that the Post Office card account
"gives easy and uncomplicated access to pensions at the most local level possible."
In the UK, no less than 4.7 million people have registered for Post Office card accounts. Clearly, something in the system appeals to benefit claimants, so it simply makes no sense to end the programme. When those 4.7 million people signed up, they were never told that the system's time was limited—they were misled, which was, I am afraid, wrong. Let us not wrong them again by allowing the system to end.
The strain that ending the card account system would put on pensioners is only a small part of the problem. We have heard that the Post Office card account contract generates £1 billion in income for the Post Office. Furthermore, sub-post offices are often or nearly always located in a store, as members have said. That is certainly the prevalent situation in the Highlands. The stores rely on the business the post office brings in to keep them viable. When—not if, but when—those post offices are forced to close because of the drop in revenue, the small businesses will lose their clientele and it will not be long, as other members have said, before they, too, are forced to shut their doors.
The position is simple. I believe that it would be hypocritical of us to have last week favoured the Scottish Executive's strategy for an ageing population and then for us this week not to declare genuine concern for the welfare of our pensioners. If we allow the destabilisation of social networks, which will result from post office closures, we will have failed in our duty to promote the growth of social capital, preserve the souls of our rural communities, provide for pensioners and protect our rural post offices.
Inevitably, at this stage of the debate, I may replicate points that have already been made, although I do not want to do so.
What strikes me first is that the vulnerable and less well-off people in our communities are given so few choices in life, and another is being withdrawn from them. Indeed, as I think Richard Lochhead said, 12 per cent of Scots do not have a bank account. Some people do not have one because they have difficulties in opening one. Someone else said that the great asset of the Post Office card account system is that someone cannot get into debt through using it. As Stewart Stevenson said, the people who use the card account system are those who are expected to manage their finances far better than, for example, MSPs manage theirs—I speak for myself.
Do members know that there are more sub-post offices in Scotland than there are bank branches and that they are in places that bank branches never reach? However, the sub-post offices are often being removed from such places now. There are some 1,400 sub-postmasters—that is a generic term; I know that there are sub-postmistresses—in Scotland and about 1,100 of their sub-post offices are simply not profitable to operate. The withdrawal of card accounts will obviously have a negative impact on key community businesses that are already fragile. They are also social talking shops—more of that later.
As I understand it, Lloyds TSB and the Clydesdale Bank currently have arrangements with the Post Office to allow clients to access their accounts at Post Office branches. It would be a good move to require the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland, which I understand have about three quarters of personal banking business in Scotland, to make the same arrangement with the Post Office card account. That would allow us to support the cards further, rather than withdraw the current support.
Furthermore, there is a prospect that Government funding to the Post Office Ltd will cease in 2008. In Scotland, that funding represents a payment of some £15 million for delivery in rural areas of services that would otherwise be uneconomical. That would be a double whammy.
As members said, the small local shop that is attached to a sub-post office might be the only shop in the village. I have used such shops. They are the places where people meet. They are the places where people find out who is pregnant, by whom, or whether it is all just a rumour. They are the places where people find out who is unwell: if an elderly person does not turn up at the post office, people become curious and check on them. Those things happen. A sub-post office is more than just a place where people collect their money; it is a place where people meet and gossip. It would be a triple whammy if such places were lost to communities. It therefore seems ironic that the Post Office card account system is to be phased out at a time when the Minister for Communities is talking about regeneration and the Minister for Environment and Rural Development is talking about rural regeneration. The loss of the card system will lead to rural degeneration.
I will not take up more time. I support Richard Lochhead's motion and I hope that the minister will take the issue to Westminster and make our wishes come true.
I add my congratulations to Richard Lochhead on securing the debate. His description of the situation in north-east Scotland applies equally well to the south-west, which I represent.
It is interesting that the Department for Work and Pensions feels the need to take a second bite at the cherry that is the post office network's share of the benefits transaction business. It appears that Post Office card accounts are taking a much bigger share of the business than was anticipated by the DWP when it conceded card accounts to sweeten the pill of automated credit transfer of benefit payments to bank accounts some three or four years ago. I understand that the DWP had anticipated 1 million card accounts, but there are now 4.5 million such accounts. The DWP underestimated the determination of sub-postmasters to stay in business and to serve their communities.
Those figures are also a measure of the Government's failure to engage the major banks, which in Scotland means the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland, as Christine Grahame said, in the setting up of basic bank accounts for people on low and fixed incomes, who work with a cash budget from week to week, as Stewart Stevenson described. The great attraction of the card account for pensioners is that it incurs no charges. Therefore the risk of going overdrawn and receiving a letter from the bank that tells them that they have incurred a £25 penalty can be avoided. Until such matters are resolved and the post office network can be guaranteed an income from the provision of services to bank customers, the income from benefits transactions via card accounts will remain vital to the viability of that network, especially in rural areas.
The importance of the network to rural life cannot be overemphasised, as many members have said. Not only is the post office often the only provider of financial services in a rural area, but it is often the only shop for miles. For many pensioners in particular, such post offices offer a lifeline—in a very real sense—to other services and to the outside world.
I am sure that ministers are well aware of the vulnerability of the rural post office network in Scotland and I hope that they will actively represent to their counterparts in London the concerns that have been expressed during the debate. There is a feeling that the DWP has been duplicitous in withdrawing a hard-won concession on Post Office card accounts and, as Christine Grahame said, there is trepidation about the future of the subsidy to the rural network, which is due to end in 2008.
I, too, congratulate Richard Lochhead on securing the debate and I welcome the opportunity to debate a subject that is important to many Scots who live in rural areas. I have lived in a rural area for most of my adult life and the subject is important to me.
Both postal services and the payment of benefits are, of course, reserved matters—that has been mentioned in the debate and we are all aware of it. However, they are clearly important and they impact on people and communities throughout rural Scotland. We therefore have a strong interest in ensuring that any changes take account of the interests of our people and communities. I wanted to say that up front in my response to the debate.
I wish now to outline the facts about the Post Office card account and the payment of pensions and benefits. The POCA was introduced because the old system of payment books was inefficient and open to fraud and did nothing to encourage people to use the banking system. We know, and have heard tonight, that many customers like the accounts. They are simple to understand and use and they are still run through the local post office. However, the POCA has limitations. People who use a POCA earn no interest on their money. They cannot pay money into their account or save money on paying bills by setting up direct debits. Although the POCA is more efficient than the old system, it is still much more expensive for the Government to pay into a POCA than into a bank account.
The DWP will continue to fund the POCA until March 2010 as planned, as is set out in its contract with Post Office Ltd. In the meantime, the DWP will be working with Post Office Ltd to explore what alternatives to POCAs might be developed. At present, there are about 25 separate accounts that can be used for accessing benefits and cash at the post office, including basic bank accounts that are run by a commercial bank. Those accounts have been pioneered by the Government and the major banks to promote genuine financial inclusion. They are designed to maintain the best aspects of the POCA while addressing its limitations. They are simple to use and most of them do not allow the user to become overdrawn. Basic bank accounts encourage people to save and manage their money. Most important, they can be accessed over a post office counter as well as through a bank or cashpoint. Many members have emphasised the importance of accessing accounts through post offices.
As we have heard in the debate, changes in benefit payment arrangements present issues for many rural post offices. Many members have stressed how important post offices are to rural communities, especially to older people, and how highly people value them. I agree with that and I absolutely recognise the importance of post offices, particularly to rural communities. However, the reality is that the vast majority of rural post offices are far from being commercially viable.
The rural post office network across the UK has been shored up since 2003 by an annual sum of £150 million from public funds and by an agreement with Post Office Ltd to prevent all avoidable closures. The funding is due to end in March 2008. The no-avoidable-closure policy has been extended to the autumn to allow for further consideration of the way forward and for a managed approach to network change. In the longer term, the network must evolve to meet current demand.
I do not disagree fundamentally with what the minister has said. However, I wonder whether she might be prepared to suggest to the UK Government that it renegotiates the contract and gives it to another party. I quote from condition 15.4 of the terms and conditions for the card accounts. This illustrates my point and illustrates how the system works.
"J.P. Morgan Europe Limited"—
which is the bank that processes the accounts—
"sends your information to another country which does not have the same data protection laws as the UK."
If we brought that role home to a UK-based company, we might get a more cost-effective deal for the customers.
We have to continue talking with the Department of Trade and Industry and the DWP. We are all agreed about the importance of having a range of products available in local post offices. We will keep talking. I do not think that there is any disagreement that we need to come up with a solution that meets the needs of people in both rural and urban communities, recognising the financial exclusion that is faced by many people and ensuring that people can get access to high-quality banking products that benefit them fully.
May I help the minister on that point?
Go on, then.
In retail and commerce, if someone's back is against the wall, they seek to diversify their business, market themselves and get additional business through the door. Perhaps the Government could play a role in this. Perhaps in the minister's inquiries to the south she could find out what savings could be made if all the benefits were included in a single system that would continue to get the post offices business.
We are considering a range of alternatives. I will go on to outline some of the pilots that are under way. No final decisions have been taken about the way forward. We need to be able to seek a solution, which is exactly what we intend to do.
We have emphasised the particular Scottish needs and priorities in our discussions with the UK Government and representatives of the Post Office. We will not accept a one-size-fits-all approach that fails to take account of Scottish communities' needs and circumstances. We have to ensure that any changes are managed strategically, rather than allow the network to decay in a haphazard way, which we must avoid. We advocate involving communities fully in consulting on and shaping the future of the network.
There are two encouraging initiatives. The first is the pilot work that Post Office Ltd has conducted with some of the Government funding to which I referred. It has considered how services can be provided more efficiently while continuing to meet local demand and retaining the social value of post offices, which many members have mentioned.
The lessons of several schemes, including a mobile van around Wick and a travelling sub-postmaster near Castle Douglas, have contributed to a recent encouraging report from Post Office Ltd that might help to shape a more sustainable future for the postal network.
The second initiative is being launched by Communities Scotland. It is setting up a programme that will offer business advice to post offices in deprived areas throughout the country. It is a modest measure—there is a limit to how much we can do legally—but I am sure that it will be cost effective.
I welcome today's debate.
Does the minister agree that it would send out a powerful message if she was able to say on the record that the policy in Scotland is to support the retention of Post Office card accounts?
I have said that we have to be able to work out a solution that best suits people who live in rural areas and urban areas and which recognises that post offices are hugely important to the social fabric of communities. People should be able to access a range of banking products and benefits in the most efficient way. We have not yet found that solution; more consultation has to be carried out. However, the pilots will work with local people to try to identify the best local situations. We need to be able to learn from the pilots. We have not yet found a final solution, but Scottish ministers will continue to work with Government ministers in the south to ensure that Scotland's needs are taken into consideration.
The Government has an interest in the future of our rural post office network. We acknowledge the social value of post offices, which we will continue to reflect in our discussions with the UK Government.
There is to be a DTI-led consultation on the future of the post office network later in the year. I encourage people to engage in the process to make their views known. We need collectively to seek a solution that is appropriate and adapted to the needs and circumstances of rural Scotland.
Meeting closed at 17:54.