Copyright 2001 Scottish Media Newspapers Limited
The Herald (Glasgow)
August 24, 2001
SECTION: Pg. 23
LENGTH: 404 words
HEADLINE: Facts of life in running trade associations
BODY: IT is one thing to argue about the rights and wrongs of monitoring the activities of political lobbyists. These are firms that take individual fees from individual companies in return for lobbying advice and establishing political contacts.
This is a million miles away from the activities of legitimate trade associations who have their own well-established democratic processes and articulate views on behalf of a given sector of industry. These simultaneously represent many hundreds or in some cases many thousands of companies. They articulate industry-wide views, not the narrow interests of any one company. In some instances inevitably they will be expressing views with which a minority of their membership would disagree. For example, during the fuel crisis a minority of our members wished us to take part in fuel protests. The majority didn't. We didn't.
Your correspondents from the Stirling Media Research Institute don't seem to have grasped this fundamental difference. Contrary to their views, the activities of a trade association lobbying on behalf of its members effectively are the very antithesis of "secretive and opaque".
They will in fact go all out to tell everybody and anyone who will listen what the views of their members are and why. That includes politicians, the press, and the public. Secondly, trade associations often provide services which are nothing to do with political lobbying. Many small companies join trade associations for help of a technical nature associated with the conduct of their business and have no interest in political lobbying whatsoever.
I wonder whether the Standards Committee of the Scottish Parliament would really like to have a list of our 11,000 members and an update every month giving details of those companies who have joined or resigned, which issues they are being represented on (some, all, none?). If such information were provided who would read it?
I doubt very much that it would be the members of the Standards Committee or for that matter the Stirling Media Research Institute. If members of the institute care to pay me a visit (they're only just up the road) I will happily explain to them the facts of life of running a large trade association. I for one have nothing to hide.
Robert M Armstrong,
executive director - regions,
Freight Transport Association,
Hermes House, Melville Terrace,
Stirling.
LOAD-DATE: August 24, 2001