Strolling through the Old Town - Lloyd, Agustin & Daniel

Daniel Pruce, the Deputy Head at the British Embassy in Madrid paid a visit to Benidorm at the end of last week as part of his 2 day schedule to the Costa Blanca. Thursday morning was spent at the Consulate in Alicante, meeting Paul Rodwell - the British Consul, Lloyd Milen - Vice Consul and the team which work there. It is one of the busiest of all the British Consulates in Spain and they deal with nearly 4 million holiday makers who flock here every year. He then came to Benidorm where he met with tour operators to discuss the issues they come across and how together, they can help ensure that visitors experiences are memorable for all the right reasons.

On Friday he met Bill Steele, the President of "Help International Benidorm" - a voluntary group of predominantly British ex-pats who help holiday makers and also residents who find themselves in difficulties, often through poor health, crime or financial crisis. They work very closely with the Consular staff in Alicante and Mr Pruce highlighted that without the organisation the Consulate would struggle helping so many people in their time of need and offered his thanks on behalf of the Government.

The pair were officially greeted by Agustin Navarro, the Mayor of Benidorm and Gema Amor, Deputy Mayor in his office at the Town Hall. There they took the opportunity to discuss the importance of the British sector to the tourism sector and related matters.

The 3 then took a stroll from the Town Hall over to the SATE office, located at the end of the Poniente beach in the Tourist Information Office.

There they met Yolanda Pickett, Director of the Tourism Foundation followed by an introduction to the staff of the National Police, who man and run the SATE office. Last year they assisted 1280 people, of which 837 where British - a combination of mainly holiday makers but also some residents who had become the victims of crime. Mr Pruce then presented them with a certificate of excellence for the service provided to the many British people who pass through their doors.

Once they had finished I had the pleasure of meeting up with both Daniel and Lloyd over a coffee at the nearby Villa Venecia hotel.

Daniel has been at the Embassy for just over a year and his primary function is to deputize for the Ambassador, Simon Manley CMG. The Embassy is located in the business district on the northern outskirts of Madrid, around 20 minutes from the centre and the equivalent of Canary Wharf in London. There are 220 personnel working for the Foreign Office across Spain - 90 of those are based at the Embassy and the remainder spread across the Consulates. 90% of the staff live in Spain are are totally bi-lingual, a necessity as they deal and liaise with the Spanish authorities on a sometimes, daily basis. He has an overview of the workings of all the Consulates and his mandate is to ensure that the limited public money assigned is being used efficiently and effectively, which is why the work of associations such as Help International Benidorm are so crucial.

I found Daniels past work history fascinating - he entered the Foreign Office upon leaving university on the last week of Margaret Thatchers premiership. His first foreign posting was to Brussels, in the EU office dealing with trade policy for 4 years. He then came back to London for a number of years and boomeranged back to Brussels again until 2001 - this time as Press Spokesman. During his time he dealt with many challenging issues including the BSE Foot & Mouth outbreak in the UK and the Kosovo conflict, of which he was part of the crisis group headed by Clare Short.

In 2002 he became Press Spokesman for Tony Blair, a position where he remained for 3 years, traveling with the "press pack" across the globe - not at all glamorous he assured me and then took the position of Deputy British Ambassador to Thailand, based in the capital Bangkok. 14 million British tourists flock there every year and around 1 million are resident, with many marrying and integrating into the culture.

He was interested to know how British ex-pats integrate with the Spanish here on the Costa Blanca and wanted to hear about any specific issues that they can address. The main re-occurring problems I told him were health, insurance and the lack of an EHIC when tourists arrive here and getting ex-pats to register on the padron - with many fearing some kind of "tax implications", which is totally inaccurate. Registering simply ensures that the local council get their fair share of the budget to cover services such as police, doctors and social services - which everyone uses. The budget is allocated on a per head of registered residents, therefore they are not receiving their true entitlement if people do not register... yet often continue to use the services and putting them under pressure.

Postings are on a 4 year cycle so I hope that we here in Benidorm have the pleasure of welcoming Mr Pruce once again during his appointment in Madrid.

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