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<p>The Government recognises the critical role that post offices and postmasters play
in rural communities and for small businesses across the UK. This is why in its 2017
manifesto the Government committed to safeguarding the post office network and protect
existing rural services.</p><p> </p><p>Around 6,100 of the 11,500 Post Office branches
across the UK are located in rural areas and 3,200 are classified as community branches,
meaning that they are the last shop in the village. Government recognises the unique
challenges of running a community branch and supports the postmasters who run them
with fixed remuneration in addition to the remuneration they receive for transactions.
Post Office Limited recently announced they will increase fixed remuneration for all
community branches and will also bring forward to August increases in remuneration
for handling cash deposits. Finally, to explore what more can be done to support all
postmasters, we have convened a quarterly working group meeting with Post Office Limited
and the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters (NFSP). The focus of the working group
is ensuring that running a Post Office becomes an even more attractive business proposition
for current and prospective postmasters.</p><p> </p>
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