Hamish Champ: A resigning matter?

By Hamish Champ

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Inns boss ted Public house Enterprise

Some in the pub industry apparently deem Greg Mulholland 'naïve' for calling on Enterprise Inns boss Ted Tuppen to resign after his company was...

Some in the pub industry apparently deem Greg Mulholland 'naïve' for calling on Enterprise Inns boss Ted Tuppen to resign after his company was fined £300,000 for renting a pub to a man who later died because the building wasn't, well, 'fit for purpose'.

Given the Lib Dem MP's stance on large pub companies - and his relationship with Enterprise - surely it was naïve to expect him to call for anything else.

We all know Mulholland and Tuppen have 'previous'. Neither especially likes their view of the world to be challenged.

But whatever one thinks of Mulholland - or Tuppen, for that matter - under what circumstances should​ someone resign as the head of their company?

When a company commits a serious mistake, one which causes loss of life, one often hears calls for the person in charge of the entity to go. Take BP for example. Of course there will be those who argue that one cannot compare the recent BP situation with that of Paul Lee and Enterprise Inns, at which point it presumably becomes an issue of 'scale'.

Either way, Enterprise's PR man indicated last week Tuppen would not be stepping down.

There was sadness and regret that Lee had lost his life due to the corporate oversights that had rendered the pub he ran unsafe, the spokesman said, but he stressed such mistakes wouldn't happen again. Lessons had been learned. New working practices were in place.

I don't doubt they are. I also don't doubt the regret expressed by the pubco's London-based press office was genuine. But the scale of the apparent ineptitude that led to Lee's death remains shocking.

Listening to the Health & Safety Executive inspector who investigated Enterprise's short-term let pubs after Lee's death three years ago it was hard to believe what one was hearing.

It wasn't a couple, or a dozen, it was hundreds​ of pubs being let by Enterprise that had not had essential safety checks carried out beforehand, some to the point they posed a serious threat to the lives of people whom the company had signed up to run them.

How was this state of affairs allowed to happen? Why were such failings allowed to go on? Who knew about them? (I hope you'll forgive me if I'm asking naïve questions here. I'd just like to know.)

Enterprise's management has always stressed the high level of professionalism that runs throughout the company when dealing with tenants and lessees running its pubs, even when this means dealing firmly with those who transgress parts of their agreements.

The degree to which Enterprise's reputation as a landlord has been affected by the Paul Lee case remains to be seen. Many will expect a new era of openness, communication and of responsibility, while others will remain extremely sceptical that anything has changed at all.

Whether or not it there is naïvety on the part of those demanding that the people in charge of Enterprise Inns leave or be removed from office, a change in attitude 'at the top' shouldn't be so fanciful a hope…

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