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The Department is responsible for formulating the Government's strategic policy for the Post Office network and for agreeing Post Office Limited's (POL) business plan.
The Government is committed to supporting a sustainable, national post office network that ensures reasonable access to a range of public and private sector services. It also recognises the important social and economic role that post offices play in the communities that they serve. This is why it provided £2bn in public funding for the network between 1999 and 2006.
In May 2007, and following a 12-week national public consultation on the future of the network, the Government announced up to a further £1.7bn in financial support for the period up to March 2011. This further public funding includes £150m a year for non-commercial post offices.
POL, which is a subsidiary of the Royal Mail Group, is responsible for managing the Post Office network arm of the business. Only a small number of post offices are directly managed by POL. The vast majority of branches (around 97%) are operated by franchise partners or subpostmasters, who are independent business people.
POL offers over 170 products, which include a range of mails, financial, travel and telephony services. It is responding to changing customer needs by developing new products and services and new means of delivering them.
