Campaigner Alan Bates says mutualisation won’t work as organisation will continue to need government subsidies

Ministers want to turn the Post Office into a co-operative and have asked business experts to investigate ways of handing control of the 364-year-old institution over to the subpostmasters who operate it.

Management consultants have been asked to explore ways to turn the scandal-hit body over to an employee-owned mutual, similar to the way the John Lewis Partnership is run, Sky News reported. The Department of Business and Trade engaged Boston Consulting Group to carry out a commercial study of the future of the Post Office.