News story: Pubs Code Adjudicator tied pub tenant survey year 2

The Pubs Code Adjudicator (PCA) – the government regulator who oversees the Pubs Code, has commissioned an independent research company Market and Opinion Research International Limited (formerly Ipsos-Mori who merged with GfK) to undertake a year 2 survey of the tied pub tenants whose pub companies are one of the six covered by the Pubs Code. The survey is to build on the previous assessment of tenants’ awareness of the Pubs Code and its provisions; and to get the views of tenants on how it is working in practice for them. The first survey conducted by GfK throughout November 2017 acted as a baselining exercise for the PCA.

Market and Opinion Research International Limited will be surveying a representative sample of tied pub tenants of the six pub-owning businesses covered by the Pubs Code. The survey is by way of telephone interviews from the end of February – end of March 2019 and should take about 15 minutes to complete. All six of the pub-owning businesses support the aims of the survey, and would encourage tied tenants to take part if approached.

All responses will be confidential and non-attributable. Neither the pub-owning businesses nor the PCA will see the responses of individual or identifiable tenants. The results of the research will be published by the PCA. We expect this to be in May / June 2019. Tied pub tenants are not able to opt in to the survey – but the PCA is keen to hear the experiences of tenants more generally via the contact form on the PCA website. The PCA is also keen to hear the experiences of of those tenants who have received a MRO proposal and is collecting views via a MRO questionnaire. This can be accessed via the PCA website or tenants can complete a hard copy questionnaire which is being distributed for the PCA by pub-owning businesses.

As well as understanding tenants’ experiences of the MRO process, the PCA wants to know whether they feel they have had a genuine choice when deciding whether to stay tied or to go free of tie. There has been a good level of feedback received so far and the PCA will be analysing all the responses received to help inform our future interventions in this area.