Mon 3rd Dec 2012 - Breaking News Three senior BBPA staff members to leave: Three senior staff members of the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) are to leave the organisation at the end of the year in a surprise slimming down of the lobby group. Martin Rawlings, BBPA director of pub and leisure, is the most high profile departure with his deputy Rita King also set to leave. Meanwhile, senior policy advisor David Sheen, who has headed the beer duty escalator campaign, will also be departing at the end of this month. The three departures are the most radical re-shaping of the trade body in recent years. One observer said: “It is looks a bit like the BBPA has essentially ceded the retail lobbying ground to the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR). The departure of David Sheen will certainly weaken the beer duty escalator campaign.” Recent years has seen the departure of a number of major retail pub groups from the BBPA with Greene King leaving three years ago and Spirit, after the de-merger from Punch Taverns last year, deciding to join the ALMR. One of the biggest blows came in October 2011 when Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) resigned from the BBPA, choosing later to join the ALMR. Another observer said: “I’d imagine there’s some pressure on the BBPA’s budget in the wake of M&B’s departure – it will have left a big hole in the BBPA’s finances and it looks like the organisation is cutting its cloth accordingly.” Members are required to give one year’s notice of their departure so it is thought that M&B’s estimated annual £125,000 membership fee will have been paid up until October this year. Spirit avoided paying a year’s notice membership fee after arguing it was newly incorporated when it left in August 2011. There was some comfort for the BBPA in recruiting JD Wetherspoon earlier this year – although the managed operator had joined the ALMR five months previously. The BBPA saw a ten per cent decline in income in the year to September 2011 with turnover of £2.21m, down from £2.46m the year before. Chief executive Brigid Simmonds said earlier this year that income is related to barrelage and pub numbers -and these have been declining for members.