For the past six months the business of the BDA Representative Body has been dominated by constitutional reform. Following legal advice and case law, it was discovered that the BDA constitution did not comply with Trade Union Legislation.

Under that legislation, the Principal Executive Committee [PEC] of any Trade Union had to be directly elected by the members of the Trade Union. The BDA had a PEC that contained members elected by the Representative Body and Directors of the company such as Peter Ward, Chief Executive and Richard Shilling Finance Director, together with some Chairs of other committees, including John Milne Chair of General Dental Practice Committee and so did not comply with the specified structure.

It would appear that a case was brought in a union representing Boiler Makers also, where a member had successfully challenged the makeup of their PEC and its legitimacy and so potentially left the BDA open to a similar challenge because their structure had similar weaknesses. It was thus decided at a Rep Body meeting to move directorship of the BDA to the Rep Body members themselves, who are directly elected by the BDA members, and so for some while I have been a director of the BDA, as the BDA made a temporary move to meet the requirements of the legislation. The Rep Body thus became the PEC.

The BDA as a company has had some financial issues in the past with a financial crisis around 2003/4 with Chief Executive, Ian Wylie standing down in late 2005. Recently there have been investments within the company such as development of the website, enhancement of member services especially in relation to HTM 01 05 and NHS contracting issues which have tested the annual budgets. There has been a massive increase in member contacts to the BDA seeking this help and this has only increased further with CQC. The running costs of the company resulted in a need for membership fee increases being ahead of inflation.

Membership fees account for approximately 55% of the money the BDA take in for the running of the business with events such as BDA Conference and revenue for advertising from the BDJ also contributing. Additional “bespoke services” such as the Good Practice scheme also bring in monies. More recently the revenue from the Journal via advertising has reduced with the austere times that we are constantly being reminded of. Without such revenue, it is clear that to run the company would result in even larger subscription rises.

Recently there was an issue about information for members regarding the CQC registration process, where the BDA chose to market a CD Rom at £75 for members, the fee was much more for non-members and had the potential to raise significant revenue. The discussion took place about the support that members could expect from their “trade union” and if such compliance with CQC and assisting members to stay within the law was a core service. In the end a decision was taken to offer this service free to members on the website, but this will end on the 31^stMarch.

Of course the membership of the BDA is made up of many different types of dentist from practice owner to performers and salaried and secondary care colleagues. Would it be right for one type of member benefitting from what some perceive as advanced membership support being cross subsidised by the rest of the membership? Such an argument was made over the CQC CD Rom issue.

All these issues relate to how a company can balance its trade union activity with the financial management of a company that places onerous and legal responsibilities on the directors of the company which is the responsible function of the PEC.

The BDA have suggested changes to its constitution and consultation will start fairly soon on this matter to change to a position where the PEC is directly elected and so complies with Trade Union law. It is expected the Rep Body will ratify such changes in time for the Triennium Elections due next year. Clearly running a company with 80 plus members of the PEC, which is the makeup of the Rep Body, can only be a temporary interim measure.

Now might be the time to question if the BDA should maintain a Trade Union responsibility at all.

The GDPC is the Committee given autonomous power by the Rep Body to deal with Trade Union activity for general practice dentistry and we have the dichotomy of membership of GDPC being elected by all primary care contract performers and cross representation from other Committees and not necessarily BDA members.

Of course there are also issues with what you can expect from your Trade Union , for example when a performer has an issue with their provider, be it practice owner or corporate, the BDA provide arbitration not representation, as both parties may indeed be members. Some of the enhanced services recently have included assistance with tendering, where the BDA charged a fee for assisting a member tender for an NHS contract, they did this on a first come basis where anyone else competing in the same tender could not purchase this additional support even if they too were a BDA member. These represent further dichotomies on what are business services and what are Trade Union roles.

The funding of the Trade Union activity is also complex, the BDA supply venues for meetings and assist in some costs such as secretariat support and paper productions for the effective working of the Committees. The sessional payments for Union activity are paid from the British Dental Guild and collected from Local Dental Committees and not directly from the BDA at all. The BDA have no “fighting fund” for any industrial action if in the unlikely event that was ever a consequence of the Trade Union activities.

With so many issues surrounding the core Trade Union activity, is now the time to re-examine who should carry out that duty, before the BDA change its’ constitution to decide if that responsibility is resting in the correct location ?

Can a company and trade union live together or should the divorce lawyers be put on notice?

Eddie Crouch