Agenda item
Trading Standards Work Plan for 2017/18
This report provides Members with information concerning Brent & Harrow Trading Standards Work Plan during 2017/18.
Minutes:
Members considered a report that provided information concerning Brent & Harrow Trading Standards Work Plan during 2017/18. Simon Legg (Regulatory Service Manager) informed members that the team was entering 2017/18 with several vacant posts and that a priority at the beginning of the year would be to recruit new, enthusiastic staff to the team to complement the existing officer’s skills to ensure the team maintained 19 FTE staff. He continued that the Service had the benefit of an investigator funded by National Trading Standards Board, Tri Region Investigation Team and continued to employ two Financial Investigators who conduct investigations generated not only from within our own Councils, but also on behalf on various other external agencies. Their duties and outputs produced, are measured differently and are outside the scope of this work plan.
Simon Legg set out the assumptions made in determining the work plan for the coming year as follows;
· Most of our work would now be reactive (complaint-driven) rather than proactive except for pre-planned project work.
· All complaints received for investigation would be risk-assessed via our matrix and would only be investigated if the relevant threshold was reached.
· The Service would always respond to reasonable requests from local businesses seeking advice and support up to the agreed number of hours and/or steer business towards primary authority advice.
· Priority would be given to commercial activities which generated an income .
· Demand would be managed and where possible by signposting service users to other resources and encouraging greater use of on-line advice and information.
· Promotion of our work as much as possible to act as an educational resource or deterrent warning when applicable
He drew members’ attention to the list of high priorities set out in the report highlighting the following:
Most complained about traders
Niche and illicit tobacco products including Shisha bars
Estate Agents and Lettings Agents.
He also drew members’ attention to the work volumes for 2017/18 for both Brent and Harrow Trading Standards and added that the work volumes would be kept under continuous review and reported quarterly, to ensure that they were being implemented effectively and progress being made. Members heard about the following projects planned for the year:
Alcohol substitution in partnership with Licensing, Police, Health and Safety and funded by Diageo.
Estate and Letting agents boards which were being displayed longer than necessary instead of being removed 14 days after completion. This project was in partnership with Planning Enforcement Team and Private Sector Housing.
Skin line products subject to a funding bid being administered by London Trading Standards
Possible enforcement of overweight vehicles using local roads where a weight limit applied, in partnership with the Police.
Simon Legg then outlined the departmental service plan and the key performance indicators as set out in the report. He continued that the Service would focus work in relation to knives and would share information with Community Safety Team to allow officers to build a clearer picture of the sources of knives as well as to make traders more responsible as to who they sold to. In response to a member’s request to focus on electric blanket, Simon Legg stated that there was not sufficient demand to justify prioritising that in view of constraints on available sources.
RESOLVED:-
That the report on Trading Standards work plan for 2017/18 be noted and members were in agreement with the volumes and areas of work in which the Service should focus over the coming year.
Supporting documents: