Portman Group

The following extract gives some insight into the context in which the Portman Group was established. "In 1989, a new public relations alliance was formed by the UK's leading alcohol companies. Instrumental in setting the ball rolling was Lord Wakeham, a Tory peer and then chairman of the Ministerial Group on Alcohol Issues. According to Anthony Hurse, civil servant at the Department of Health: "Lord Wakeham made it clear to the alcohol industry that he would like the industry's collaboration. He spoke to Peter Mitchell [Director of Strategic Affairs] at Guinness who agreed he'd do what he could. As a consequence of Wakeham's suggestions, the UK's seven leading alcohol companies including Whitbread, Bass and Seagram, launched a new PR organisation from the headquarters of Guinness plc in London's Portman Square. The Portman Group's publicly stated aim is "to promote sensible drinking" However, according to Professor Nick Heather, Director of the Newcastle Centre for Alcohol and Drug Studies, the Group's real agenda is rather different: "The attempt to distance alcohol as a drug from other kinds of drug and to give it a good face is the main activity of groups like the Portman Group."

An article in The Grocer, a trade publication, which was reflecting on the governments 2004 public health white paper suggests that the food industry was in need of its own Portman Group. This was to protect the interests of the food industry the article claims:

One director of one leading drinks firm says" The Portman Group was set up as our insurance policy. Getting all the different competitors to work together has not been plain sailing but the creation of the group has definitely benefited us all. There was nothing in the White Paper that was a surprise we are already ahead of the game in most areas" Perhaps now the food industry could do with its own version of Portman.

Hugh Burkitt, ceo of the Marketing Society supports the idea of a Portman for the food industry, Burkitt who was once a member of Portman Group's independent complaints panel, sees the development of such a group as essential to the food industry because, according to The Grocer:

the White Paper is specifically looking for is industry to introduce some element of self-regulation and in that situation the role of the Portman Group becomes even more important. The Portman Group is both a promotional body and a self-regulatory body and it seems to me that is exactly what the food industry is looking for at the moment. Better still, Burkitt says, the Portman Group does a great job for the alcohol industry for the piffling sum of just 2m a year. Coincidentally, as Burkitt was giving his presentation in London, Jean Coussins, chief executive of the Portman Group, was telling a conference in Beaconsfield organised by European sugar industry body CEFS why her organisation had been so successful.

She pointed out that the Portman Group was a truly independent body, with a clearly defined role. And it had benefited the alcohol industry in a number of ways such as: the fostering of political trust and co-operation; the avoidance of statutory controls; and the generation of positive media coverage. All of which has been achieved because the Portman Group is definitely not a trade association that lobbies on behalf of its members.

Portman Group's Role

The Portman Group claim that thier purpose is to promote responsible drinking; help prevent misuse of alcohol; encourage responsible marketing; and to foster a balanced understanding of alcohol-related issues . The role of the Portman Group include: operating a self regulatory scheme for alcohol producers on the marketing, packaging and promotion of alcoholic drinks; funding of various educational initiatives to promote responsible drinking and reduce alcohol harm.

The Portman Group are funded by the drinks industry and claim to: "recognise the importance to their own commercial freedom of tackling the social problems associated with alcohol misuse. We speak for these companies on social aspects of alcohol. We do not represent any drinks company or other part of the trade on any other matter."

Working in Partnership with Government

The Government's Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy (England)was launched in March 2004 (and subsequently reaffirmed in the Choosing Health White Paper). One of the aims was to develop a fund with broad based suport, financed voluntarily by industry to tackle alcohol misuse and alcohol-related harms. "It was envisaged that the fund would be used to finance community and national activities across the UK and would be administered by an independent board, wholly independent of Government"

The industry opposed government plans to create an independent national fund for projects aimed at combating alcohol problems. Eventually, it agreed to reform an existing industry fund - the Drinkaware Trust - giving it greater independence from the industry. The Department of Health was approached by The Portman Group, which hoped its charitable arm, The Drinkaware Trust, would be a suitable vehicle to deliver the proposed new fund. After consultation and considerable negotiations between a variety of stakeholders between 2005-2006, "a Memorandum of Understanding between the Government, Devolved Administrations and The Portman Group was signed on 29 June 2006, whereby it was agreed that, as soon as was “reasonably practicable, the governance, funding base and activities of the existing Drinkaware Trust will be re-structured to fulfil the educational, community and awareness campaigning role envisaged in the Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for a fund, voluntarily financed by the alcohol industry (producers and retailers), but with broadly-based support to tackle alcohol-related harms"•

English Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy

The UK governmnt, in response to escalating levels of alcohol related harm, consulted a group of experts to provide evidence on which to base a strategy to reduce the growing problem. Seventeen independent experts provided evidence which supported raising the price of alcohol and limiting avalability. However the strategy which emerged from the government did not accept the findings of the expert group. Instead the government refered to only one "alcohol misuse" group, The Portman Group. The strategy ignored the original expert group's recommendations and adopted the "language and ideas of the alcohol industry" . Alex Stevens notes "This seems a clear example where external pressure on government by a powerful group has influenced the use of evidence in policy" .

Funding Members

Full Members who fund the Portman Group are as follows:

• Bacardi Brown Forman Brands
• Beverage Brands (UK) Ltd
• Carlsberg UK
• Coors Brewers UK
• Diageo Great Britain
• InBev UK Ltd
• Pernod Ricard UK
• Scottish & Newcastle

Another 140 companies are signed up to the Portman Group Code of Practice, which encourages responsible marketing by the drinks industry. The on and off trade retailers in particular play a vital role in helping to enforce the decisions of the Independent Complaints Panel.

PR Companies

The Portman Group has works with a range of PR and advertising companies including :

• M&C Saatchi
• Iodine Media

Criticisms

Despite the wide membership the Portman Group stand accused of being dominated by alcohol producers in funding and governance.

The Portman Group reportedly, offered several British scientists a fee of £2000 to write anonymous critiques undermining a publication calling for more controls on the sale of alcohol namely higher tax and more restricted availability (seeMarcus Grant)

Then came an episode Plant himself describes as 'very serious - an enormous ethical problem'. The Portman Group, a lobby organisation set up by several big drinks manufacturers, was funding Plant's team to the tune of Pounds 500,000 over five years. In 1995 an employee of the Portman Group invited at least one researcher to write anonymous reports commenting on a World Health Organisation book about alcohol problems, edited by London-based addiction expert Griffith Edwards. Nick Heather, director of the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Studies at Newcastle University, was approached and declined. 'This was unacceptable because it was anonymous and because I was being offered a relatively large amount of money (Pounds 2,000) to do it,' says Professor Heather, who was then phoned by John Duffy, a statistician within Plant's group, who wanted the names of alternative reviewers.

The incident featured on a Dispatches television programme and was a factor in the breakdown in the relationship between Plant and Duffy. 'We reported this to the university and dissociated ourselves from Duffy,' says Plant. 'The issue was anonymity. Researchers have to maintain a transparent and open relationship about their funding agencies.' Duffy later left and now works in the Chief Scientist's Office at the Scottish Office in Edinburgh. As a civil servant he says he is not permitted to speak to The THES.

'As a kind of psychotherapy we got together with an academic from Newcastle University after that incident and wrote a paper about ethics, research and funding,' says Plant. But over the past three years the fall-out has rippled through the team, affecting its work. In October Plant finally severed his ties with Edinburgh. Both he and the university agree that the psychiatry department's research plans (for biological and genetic research) do not conform with the type of social science research the alcohol and health research group was carrying out. When the team's core funding, from the Portman Group, ran out last year, Plant made a move.

Other criticisms of the group come primarily from outwith the industry and include the following

• A lack of independence which results it it reflecting the interests of the alcohol industry
• Ignores or discredits evidence that does not fit with the industry perspective
• Its educational campaigns place too much emphasis on individual responsibility
• Fails to emphasis the long term risks of heavy drinking
• Some critics regard the group as a Social Aspects Organisation whose aim is to manage issues that threaten the alcohol business
• Perhaps the most serious criticism regards the influence the Portman Group has over alcohol research, particularly following the decision to appoint it's then chief executive Jean Coussins to the Alcohol Education and Research Council. Professor Robin Room argueed against Coussins appointment he argued: "In my view, an organisation which has taken such a partisan position specifically on research findings should not be on the board of a semigovernmental organisation which is supporting alcohol research with public money." He added: "If a Portman Group staff member remains on the AERC board, it will severely compromise the AERC’s reputation and capacity to function as a scientific funding body operating in the public interest." Other prominent alcohol researchers agree including Griffith Edwards professor of addiction at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, and editor of Addiction, agreed: "Jean Coussins is not a representative of the brewing industry but of a lobby group. The Portman Group has lobbied government intensively on behalf of the drinks industry, arguing that it is not drinking that matters, but drunkenness.

Directors

All of the directors of the Portman Group come from the alcohol industry and hold current directorships with large corporations who produce and distribute alcohol, with the exception of the chief executive who only sits on the Portman board. Many also are directors of trade associations such as The British Beer and Pub Association and the The Drinkaware Trust.

• David Poley Chief Executive
• John Dunsmore
• Jean Spriet
• Christopher Searle
• Douglas Clydesdale
• Joseph Woods
• Richard S. Evans
• Benet Slay
• Peter Swinburn