Bound by bureaucracy

Bound by bureaucracy

The scourge of red tape – the bane of many a busy publican’s life – is currently coming under intense scrutiny as a special inquiry led by trade body, Pubs of Ulster, begins to uncover the exact extent of the mountain of paperwork that our hospitality sector is facing.

The review is one element of a UK-wide, cross-sectoral  probe  designed to discover just how big the burden of compliance is for businesses. Following successful lobbying from Pubs of Ulster, hospitality has been chosen  as the pilot sector and Colin Neill’s team will initially examine three areas of significant concern to the trade – liquor licensing; hygiene regulations and entertainment licensing.

Colin will be chairing a series of working groups around Northern Ireland, some of which have already taken place in the east and west of the country. The panels are made up of publicans, hoteliers and restaurateurs as well as representative s of the bodies responsible for enforcing the current legislation.

“Cost is one of the issues that we’re going to be looking at,” Colin told LCN recently. “Take the entertainment licence. In Belfast, this has to be applied for every year and for some people, the cost can run into thousands of pounds. But why is it necessary to apply every year? Surely when you have the licence, you have it? And there are lots of other elements of the process that we are looking at, the requirement for ceiling certificates, for example. That might be necessary for somewhere like the Opera House…but for the average pub, it’s just not needed. And then there’s the cost of advertising – all of these things really add up.”

Colin hopes that the inquiry will be complete by the end of the year, at which point a report will be submitted to Enterprise Minister, Arlene Foster, who launched the red tape review in December. At that time, she conceded that “burdensome administrative requirements are a real handicap for businesses” and said that she wanted to ensure that the inquiry – and the wider review into which it contributes – would make “a lasting impact on the competitiveness of doing business in Northern Ireland”.

For his part, Colin Neill is optimistic that the review will lead to a reduction in the burden of paperwork for hospitality operators in the province:

“The way that we have approached this means that we have the support of Ministers,” he added. “We have put a lot into this process and we will be continuing to lobby like mad because we know what can come out of this.”

Danny Coyles, general  manager at The Anchor Bar complex in Portstewart, adopts a very pragmatic approach to the paperwork that has to be completed. He says that he likes to stay on top of all compliance issues in the business, but admits that it’s a time-consuming process:

“As well as taking care of all the paperwork, you also have to find time to try and add something to the business as well, you always have to be trying to improve,” he remarks.

Danny is currently spending time information gathering for his local building control office in relation to project that requires planning approval – he’s also mindful of the constantly changing nature of health and safety regulations:

“All of this can be very daunting for small firms in particular,” he adds. “It can certainly be hard for them and not everyone in business is completely au fait with all of the terms that are used in the documentation that they receive.

“There is more and more legislation being imposed all the time on everyone and it’s getting harder to run a business efficiently because of the amount of time that people are having to spend doing the paperwork.”

At the Corner House in Lurgan, proprietor Trevor McCann, says that it takes him “near enough a day in the week”, to stay ahead of the paperwork his business requires.

“We purchased an old building and so you can pick up things that the last owners left behind,” he adds. “Things like the asbestos report that we are in the process of doing at the minute for the whole building.

“But there are also taxing and staffing issues, all of which cost us time and money. There is really only so much that an owner/operator can do and where my skills really lie are in running a public house and getting the best out of it, not in doing paperwork. It’s very frustrating.”

And Trevor is not optimistic that there will be reduction in the burden of compliance any time soon:

“I feel that issues just keep on getting passed down the line and it’s the poor old publican or the small business person that is left to pick up the pieces and comply with these things,” he remarks. “You end up out of pocket and managing a big workload and the results is that it’s taking you away from what you do best.”