All seven licensees who have been through the PICA-Service were invited at the meeting, set up by chair of the Save the Pub Group Greg Mulholland MP.
The licensees attending included those that have both ‘won’ and ‘lost’ their applications to PICA-Service including Val and Gavin Spencer from the Cock at Lavenham, Suffolk, former licensee Alan Yorke, Kirsty Valentine from the Alma, Islington and Peter Bradley of the Way Inn, Basingstoke, Hampshire.
Also present at the meeting was Tony Leonard, licensee of the Snowdrop in Lewes, East Sussex, legal advisor George Scott and licensee Ron Piper who has been in legal dispute with pubco Punch Taverns.
Reasoned findings
According to the dossier, the PICA-Service is not independent as it is financed by the pubcos; does not issue the list of panel members who it claims are not impartial and cannot legally enforce judgements on pubcos.
It also argued that applicants are not even given reasoned findings for its decisions and claims that many guilty findings are on ‘The Spirit of the Code’ which has no written definition.
The dossier claimed that PICA-Service does not fall within the context of the wider legislation of the Arbitration Act and the relationship with their pubco does not improve post hearing with two threatened with legal action and two pursued for forfeiture from seven who have used the process.
Mulholland said: “We have exposed PICA-Service as being a waste of time, utterly opaque, even to the licensees taking cases and clearly biased. PICA-Service is presented as a quasi-legal process of genuine arbitration and it is neither.
“No wonder the majority of licensee organisations – the ones who don’t receive pubco funding – refused to having anything to do with PICA-Service or PIRRS.
"Pubco licensees simply will not trust these bodies in their current guise, nor can they deal with the chronic overcharging, which is the real problem.
Not transparent
“We need a statutory code of practice for the large companies including a market rent only option so at last we can have a fair deal for licensees and local pubs. Self regulation hasn’t and can’t deliver so BIS now need to act.”
Licensee Kirsty Valentine, who has launched a campaign for her pub the Alma in Islington to be listed as an asset of community value, said she would never promote the scheme to anyone.
She said: “The service is not transparent, not reasonable and not fair by any means.
“I would never recommend the PICA-Service service to anyone, no matter what, as it simply does not offer an independent conciliatory arbitration service.”
PICA-Service licensees also positive about the process
However, last month Capital Fare managing director Lucy Townsend who took the first case against Punch to PICA-Service described the process as "fantastic".
And Russell Stone, the first licensee to go public about his case, has joined the PICA-Service as a panel member.
Stone runs the George on the Green in Holyport and won his case against Enterprise.