Failing to deliver: How the rising cost of living has exposed an ongoing failure to tackle post exclusion
Post contains vital information about our finances, medical appointments, and even legal documents. At Citizens Advice, our local offices are regularly seeing people with problems because they can’t access their post.
For millions of people, their living situation leaves them excluded from this essential service. This disproportionately impacts people who are homeless, people experiencing domestic abuse and people from a Gypsy, Roma or Traveller community.
The UK is actually far behind other countries, like Australia and Ireland, in terms of addressing this issue. And since 2018, Citizens Advice has worked with industry, regulators, charities and people with lived experience to develop a solution. We’re calling this ‘Address & Collect’ - a free service where people could opt to collect their post at a post office.
Because of cost of living pressures, this sort of service is needed now more than ever. The numbers affected by issues such as homelessness and housing insecurity and the scale of financial pressures they’re facing has increased rapidly. Letters enable access to income and help us manage financial affairs - they can be a lifeline and people losing access during periods of housing insecurity can then face greater barriers to getting help and support at the moment they most need it.
We have consumer protections enshrined in law that are supposed to make sure that access to post is universal - that’s the USO. But there is a clear gap for the millions of people who don’t have a safe or secure fixed address.