Pub conciliation service opens for business
The Pubs Independent Conciliation and Arbitration Service - known as the PICA-Service - which offers pub companies and their tenants and lessees a low-cost way to resolve disputes, has opened for business this week.
The body, set up by the Pubs Independent Rent Review Scheme (PIRRS) will handle disputes on all issues other than rent.
PIRRS and PICA-Service are provided by five of the industry's leading associations: the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR), the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII), the Federation of Licensed Victuallers' Associations (FLVA) and the Guild of Master Victuallers (GMV).
The new PICA-Service will report to the PIRRS board, which is independently chaired by Bernard Brindley, a licensee of many years' standing in the pub trade.
"I'm delighted to announced the PICA-Service is up and running from today. When Business Minister Edward Davey called on the industry to establish the PICA-Service last November, he set a 1 March deadline, which we have met," Brindley said. "This is a service that will welcomed by tenants and lessees and will play an important role in further enhancing confidence in the new systems of self-regulation in the pub trade."
The PICA-Service provides tenants and lessees, whose pub companies are bound by the Pubs UK Industry Framework Code of Practice (IFC), with a formal dispute resolution. This can be called into play by tenants and lessees when disagreements over breaches of the IFC and company codes of practice, or the spirit of the codes, have failed to be settled via the pub company's internal procedures. Both the tenants/lessees and the pub company will pay a small fee (£200 each), upon registration of the complaint, which will be reimbursed to the publican should the complaint be partially or fully upheld. Furthermore, the PICA-Service has the power to assess and award unlimited compensation claims on behalf of the tenants and lessees.
The PICA-Service will select five members of its appointed 25-strong panel of professionals to provide each action with an equal distribution of expertise. Members of the panel, chaired by chartered surveyor and consultant Rodger Vickers, include representatives from both inside and outside the licensed trade.
By Neil Gerrard
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