Company seeking to shut or refranchise most of its crown post offices and cut up to 1,000 head office positions

The Post Office is expected to announce the closure of dozens of branches and cut up to 1,000 head office jobs as it seeks to reduce costs to secure its financial future.

There are about 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK, of which 115 are wholly centrally owned. The rest are operated by independent post office operators under contract and partners such as WH Smith and Tesco.