ACS

The Association of News Retailing (ANR) has responded to today’s announced plans from the NPA for a new Publisher Fast Track Restitution Scheme with frustration and disappointment.

This is a re-launch of a scheme, originally announced in November last year, which the ANR were also unable to support. “Rather than being an improvement on the meaningless process which was first proposed by the NPA, the new scheme is even more cumbersome, and seems almost designed to cause confusion,” said John Lennon, Managing Director at ANR.

The scheme, which will be introduced in the UK from 1st September 2008, is supposed to give retailers access to a fast and straightforward complaints procedure for late delivery of newspapers. It also should provide retailers with restitution against financial loss as a result of persistent late delivery.

However, ANR is taking issue with some of the key clauses in the scheme, e.g.
• Retailers will need to contact publishers directly to make their complaint, instead of being provided with one central contact point
• Retailers will not be able to claim more than £30 (per claim), and a total figure of £3000 per claim for all retailers cannot be exceeded.
• Retailers have to suffer three instances of lateness before they can claim, and there is no provision made for claiming against ‘serious lateness’.
• If a retailer wants to appeal against a publisher’s decision, they can do this to an independent Appeals Arbiter, but the NPA have not announced who this is. The most obvious candidate is the Joint Industry Group arbiters, but since JIG does not support the NPA’s scheme, those arbiters cannot be used.

“Retailers have been offered an even more unsatisfactory scheme that gives the allusion of restitution without actually delivering anything useful,” said John Lennon. “We will not be supporting it unless major changes are made that ease the process for newspaper retailers in the UK.”

Contacts:

John Lennon Managing Director, ANR
01252 515001 / 07812 144439

Shane Brennan Public Affairs and Communications Manager
01252 515001 / 07921 372 978

Nina Collins Communications Coordinator
01252 515001

Julie Kirby/ Grappa PR
Michael Saxton 020 7602 9222

Notes to Editors
1) The Association of News Retailing (ANR) was set up in 2001 as the news and magazines arm of the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS). ACS is the convenience store champion, helping local shops thrive through lobbying, insight, information and commercial services.