Jayne Dowle: It's time to deliver the goods for post offices

I'm asking you too because the Government has come up with a

big idea.

Ministers plan to rethink what post offices offer, and place them right back at the heart of the community, where they belong, or so they say. What a splendid notion this seems, considering the previous administration oversaw the closure of thousands of branches and shifted essential services away from the post offices themselves and towards the internet. Elderly people and those without the advantage of broadband and a laptop just loved that one.

Hold on a minute, though. Forgive me for being cynical, but aren't we being sold a bit of a dream here, with more than a sniff of desperation about it?

Promising to give post offices a new lease of life and turn them into drop-in centres/tea-shops/hairdressers/vets – who knows, it's all up for consultation – is no magic panacea which will make all the nasty things go away. It does smack rather too much of the down-home nostalgia which the coalition seems to think we all yearn for, when in truth, many of the "communities" it talks about so sincerely are riven with poverty and fears over personal security, and divided by lack of affordable housing and unemployment. How can you have a "heart of the community" if you don't tackle the lack of community which surrounds it?

And this latest wheeze can't make up for massive cuts to the public sector and the rise in VAT which awaits us in the New Year. If ministers think we're that easily pleased, they have seriously underestimated the disgruntlement of the great British public. And it's not going to be an overnight success either. It is estimated that up to two-thirds of the country's 12,000 remaining branches are running at a loss. The words "reversing" and "oil tanker" come to mind. If it all goes horribly wrong, then it is going to be an embarrassing mistake the Government could do without.

Basically, the thinking is to give post offices the chance to become "mutual organisations" with sub-postmasters, staff and local people having much more of a say in how they are run and what kind of services they offer.

It's that decentralisation thing again, otherwise known in government circles as "washing our hands of a knotty problem and hoping for the best".

The plan is to allow branches to become a kind of "front office" for all kinds of central and local government services, such as helping jobseekers, paying council bills and rent and so on.

At first sight, this appears to be an impressive piece of joined-up thinking. But take it to its logical conclusion and it is clear that someone had this bright idea because pretty soon, the public sector services which now offer the same function may well find themselves surplus to cost-cutting requirements.

I can however, see how this rethink might actually be consider a sensible approach by some. And the Treasury has pledged to invest more than 1.3bn to refurbish branches and invest in staff.

But two things have seriously made me doubt the sincerity of the proposals. First of all, why has the government stopped short at creating a proper Post Office Bank? Why on earth, when it is planning to overhaul the post office system root and branch, hasn't it taken the opportunity to set up a bank which could be used by all kinds of people who for all kinds of reasons, don't have easy access to high street banking?

Pensioners' groups are already up in arms. And also, incidentally, this would provide a steady and reliable way of bringing regular customers into ailing branches and thus ensure their survival and prosperity in a way that offering a bit of help with Situations Vacant never will.

The Coalition Agreement even promised that the new Government would "look at the case for developing new sources of revenue, such as the creation of a Post Office Bank". But we know only too well what happens to politicians' promises, don't we?

And, why has the government undertaken plans to sell off the

Royal Mail letter services – and rumour has it, hive off benefit processing to a private company – therefore potentially denying post offices two absolutely guaranteed

forms of revenue? As I said, don't be fooled by the nostalgic hype. We've been here before with the Labour government.

Once again, our post offices are being held up on the altar of political ambition, when all they want is to be able to hold their own, and deliver the goods to their customers.