§ Shona McIsaacTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has approved the Post Office's five-year Strategic Plan and set the post-tax profit target for the Post Office group; and if he will make a statement. [144050]
§ Mr. Alan JohnsonI am pleased to announce that the Government have approved the Post Office's Strategic Plan for 2000–05. This is a five-year rolling Plan which is updated annually. The Plan represents a key element in the new arm's-length relationship that the Government are establishing with the Post Office in fulfilment of the reforms described in the White Paper published in July 1999. The Post Office will be building on the previous year's Plan and pursuing its strategy of becoming a global player in the distribution market.
Although much has been achieved over the past year, the Post Office recognises that there remains much to do. The market place for postal services is increasingly competitive and there are tough challenges to be faced, 190W but the Post Office is working to build on current initiatives and to seize commercial opportunities as they arise in the UK and internationally.
The key features of the Strategic Plan are commercially confidential, and as such will not be published. In May this year the Government set the Post Office a return on capital employed target of 13 per cent. for 2000–01, which translated into an operational pre-tax profit target of £392 million for the year. Return on capital employed is defined as profit before interest payable and tax, but after operating interest receivable, divided by operating capital employed. This target excluded the network of post offices, where the report of the Performance and Innovation Unit on the network of post offices was awaited, and the non-operational interest arising from past surpluses held on the Post Office's balance sheet. This target was to be subsumed within the overall post-tax profit target for the Post Office as a whole, as described in the White Paper. The Government have now set a post-tax profit target figure for the group of £260 million for the financial year 2000–01.
As already announced, the 'dividend' that the Government effectively take out of the Post Office is now set at 40 per cent. of the post-tax profits of the business as a whole, and therefore if the Post Office achieves the profit target, this equivalent of a commercial dividend will be £104 million. This is subject to a dividend floor payment which this year will be raised from 80 per cent. to 90 per cent. of the dividend that would be paid if the Post Office meets its overall profit target. The dividend floor payment will therefore be £93 million. The Post Office will not pay dividends until it becomes a plc, but in the meantime will set aside the relevant amount in its reserves.
In order to help the Post Office to plan for the medium term, the Government have also set an indicative financial return for 2002–03 of 13 per cent. return on capital employed in the Post Office's operational business, excluding the network of post offices and any non-operational interest arising from past surpluses.
§ Mrs. Betty WilliamsTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he will lay the Government's annual report to Parliament on the progress of Post Office reform; and if he will make a statement. [144049]
§ Mr. Alan JohnsonI have today laid in the Library of each House the Government's first annual report to Parliament on the progress of the reforms set out in the White Paper on "Post Office Reform: a World Class Service for the 21st Century", which was published in July 1999. This summarises the significant steps that have already been taken in implementing the reforms and the progress being made in giving the Post Office greater commercial freedom.