Incidents of BDM bullying are rare occasions

I wish to respond to last week's letter in the MA ("Payne should stand down for supporting BDMs"). It is the membership of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations who have the right to ask me to stand down and not a member of the Federation of Small Businesses.

With regards to supporting business development managers (BDMs), both in your paper and at the Trade & Industry Select Committee (TISC), I was asked the question and gave an honest answer. My mobile phone is switched on 365 days a year and I receive many calls from our membership, but I can honestly say it is a rare occasion when there is a complaint about a BDM.

When I do receive one, I immediately seek full details and then take them up with the company concerned with our member present through either the BLRA Code of Practice or the company's dispute procedure.

In my presentation to TISC on 6 July 2004 I pointed out there were occasions when I had had to deal with BDMs who had tried to bully our members and, yes, it was me who suggested that a code of practice should be drawn up, including one for disputes procedures, which should be written into licensees' agreements to deal with this type of problem.

I also said the industry should have new procedures for rent negotiations instead of the costly arbitration system at present. All my evidence given at the DTI inquiry was fully discussed with our committee and sent to members in a newsletter and was not discredited at a later date.

My concerns regarding Mr R Feal-Martinez'sletter are that if he has had knowledge of instances of corporate thuggery, as he reported, that these have not been dealt with through the correct procedures laid down. I can assure you they would have been dealt with immediately if it concerned FLVA members.

Contrary to what Mr Feal-Martinez says I did go into detail with TISC on how struggling licensees should be assisted by pubcos. The FLVA looks after the interests of its members with individual business plans and rent negotiations at no extra cost to the annual fee.

Finally, I have never once tried to look after the interests of BDMs or pubcos. I am paid to look after the interests of FLVA members and I honour my responsibilities fully.

Tony Payne

Chief Executive

Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations

Most BDMs have helped shape the industry

As a BDM (business development manager) of many years' standing I have found this recentflurry of attacks on my calling very concerning.

I thought it disconcerting that all the ills of the pubco system seemed to be blamed by the Government on the machine tie and on the poor quality of BDMs ­ all this without the courtesy of having a single one give evidence (to TISC).

There are, of course, poor BDMs as well as good ones, but usually they are the ones who have to pick up the pieces from other poor decisions by both licensees and company management.

Having lived through the Beer Orders, the madness of Inntrepreneur, the '90s recession, the decline in beer consumption, and the enormous rise in capacity from new-build managed houses, I can honestly say that if it were not for the strenuous efforts of this same vilified group, the pub industry would be in far worse shape than it is today.

The skills needed to be a successful self-employed licensee are so many, and some of them are so mutually exclusive, that without an outside influence guiding them they would mostly fail.

Who else other than the BDM has the knowledge of the individual, the marketplace, and the possibilities available, such as accountants, stocktakers and solicitors? No decent BDM I have ever met has not understood that the fundamental requirement is to have profitable customers.

It is true that there is a policing element to the job. In some of your articles some comments were made to the effect that BDMs are too concentrated on cash collection and tie enforcement. Is anyone seriously suggesting that if a licensee is in financial difficulty that the BDM should ignore it? Frequently, I have been the first and only person to take impending money problems seriously, and I include the licensees in that, but by doing so I have prevented hundreds of people from either losing their businesses or debt.

Uniformed, gratuitous attacks like those that have recently been made are, however, unwelcome as well as unfair, especially as BDMs have nobody to represent them. The attacks merely betray the perpetrators' lack of knowledge of how the tied trade works.

Name and address supplied

When 22 years in pubs counts for nothing

At last I received the licensing application forms for a personal licence and premises licence along with the 39-page Guidance pack.

I have been a freehouse publican and held a justices alcohol licence for the last 22 years, having owned four freehouses. My son and I have recently sold one pub where I was the named licensee (the licence was only relinquished last September) and I now help my son two days a week in his pub. He is the licensee, but as I am still responsible for the two days I work at his pub, I applied for a personal licence.

Looking through the guidance pack I noticed that there are only two alternatives when applying for a personal licence ­ A) be a current licence holder with your name on a justice licence, or B) (This is how it is stated) you can still apply for a personal licence but you must show that you "have sufficient knowledge of the licensing law and social consequences of selling alcohol". This is proved by successfully completing an appropriate training course.

As I haven't done the course I told the local authority of my full background and that I was seeking a personal licence, as a holder of Fellow British Institute of Innkeeping membership, under grandfather rights. The council's answer was that, unfortunately, this did not qualify me, so I would have to pass a new course specially designed for the personal licence.

The mind boggles at just what the hell is going on when someone with 22 years' experience, and who is still completely up-to-date with all the new legislation, does not qualify for the personal licence. Yet someone with no experience can take the new qualification and receive the personal licence.

Why am I so frustrated? I should have realised that between the Government and the local authorities, they couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery.

John Dyson

Ex-licensee; the Raddle Inn 1982-87, Witchwood 1988-95, Hollins Inn 1995-97, Mucky Duck 1999-04 all bought from breweries or pubcos that couldn't run them successfully, built up then sold back to breweries and pubcos at handsome profits but, eh, I haven't the qualifications to run today's pubs