Agenda item

To receive, in accordance with the requirements of the Consortium Agreement, the Trading Standards Annual Report for the year 2022/2023.

The Board received a report, presented by Anu Prashar (Senior Regulatory Service Manager, Brent Council) detailing the Trading Standards Annual Report for 2022 – 23 which had been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Consortium Agreement and detailed the work of the Trading Standards Service.

In considering the report the Joint Advisory Board noted:

·            That the Trading Standards Service operated on a joint consortium basis between the London Borough of Brent and the London Borough of Harrow, with Brent being the host authority.

·            The Service was responsible for delivering each local authority’s statutory duties relating to the legislation enforced by a Weights and Measures Authority including responsibility for the enforcement of all related legal powers and duties.

·            In seeking to deliver these responsibilities the Service had been designed to promote and maintain a fair and equitable trading environment for consumers and businesses alike, creating a level and equal marketplace in which consumers, business and local economic growth would be supported. Duties extended to all business types including those who traded online, local high streets, commercial business parks, trading estates, those who traded from home and also door to door.

·            The continued partnership between the Service and Citizen’s Advice Consumer Service in acting as the first point of contact for enquiries from anyone within Brent or Harrow requiring consumer advice.  Given it was not possible for the Service to investigate every consumer complaint, a prioritisation process had been established to ensure the most serious complaints or those relating to a business generating multiple issues were focussed upon in order to enable resources were applied proportionately and in those cases where they were needed most of would have the maximum impact.  During 2022 – 23 the Servicereceived 4,872 service requests which as well as the Citizen’s Advice Consumer Service included the Ports Team, Police, businesses, consumers and other Trading Standards agencies.  Having been prioritised this resulted in 704 service requests having been analysed for investigation by Brent and 543 within Harrow.

·            Examples of specific activity undertaken by the Service provided within the Annual Report included:

Ø   The Service being actively involved in a London wide project to promote consumer and product safety involving illegal cosmetics and skin lightening creams and to provide educational content on the dangers of prohibited substances being used in these products.

Ø   Marketplace surveillance activity focussed around the increased availability of unsafe and non-compliant products linked to the cost-of-living crisis which had led to over 1,500 listings (including a range of unsafe electrical goods being marketed as energy efficient) being removed from auction and internet sites.

Ø   Over 120 weighing machines in local high streets being inspected to ensure scales were accurate and consumers were getting what they paid for.   Whilst the majority of the scales tested were compliant, four scales in Brent were immediately taken out of service with one in Harrow and work continuing to ensure businesses ensured their scales were correctly calibrated.

Ø   Visits being undertaken in vape hotspot areas across Brent and Harrow leading to 170 businesses being advised about product compliance with this area of work remaining an ongoing priority in terms of ensuring product and age restriction compliance. Alongside this, work also continued to address the import and sale of illegal tobacco with activity in this area increasing as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.  Work undertaken by the Service had included a total of 28 operations, using sniffer dogs on some occasions, to help detect retailers hiding illegal tobacco or seeking to prevent its seizure with the total value of illegal tobacco seized over £57,000.

·            The continued utilisation of risk assessment methods to target criminal activity directly affecting business and consumers, based on an intelligence led approach involving the national Trading Standards database and London Trading Standards regional intelligence team, all of which assisted in identifying emerging trends, locally, regionally and nationally and fed into the strategic and tactical assessments to help co-ordinate future enforcement.  This approach had supported the additional activity already identified during 2023 - 24 in relation to the sale of illegal tobacco and vape products.

·            The ongoing support being provided in relation to business growth through the delivery of effective regulation for businesses.  This had involved the provision of advice for local businesses across a wide range of legislation enforced by the Service including the import of goods, weights and measures, age restrictive sales and intellectual property.  The Service also continued to promote the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Primary Authority scheme to businesses offering assured, tailored advice to help businesses ensure they complied with the law.  This had included over 70 hours of advice delivered to Primary Authority businesses, offering support and guidance on their physical and online compliance in areas such as product safety, product testing, marketing claims and the circular economy.

·            The additional partnership activity and enforcement targeted at businesses generating the highest number of complaints along with the rapid response service introduced to tackle doorstep crime and rogue traders and ongoing programme of test purchases and prosecutions to tackle underage sales.  Details were also provided on the work being undertaken to improve lettings compliance through a programme of online audits of letting agents.

·            The success achieved in relation to the financial investigations undertaken through the Service with details on specific cases provided in the Annual Report and confiscation orders totalling £587,184.

·            The ongoing work to develop resources within the Service, which had resulted in two officers having successfully completed and passed the Level 4 Intelligence Apprenticeship Standard and Brent and Harrow Trading Standards having received the award for Intelligence Apprentice of the year and Investigator of the year at the London Trading Standards Awards.  The Board congratulated all those who had gained awards or completed their relevant training standard.

The following issues were then raised by Members of the Board in response to the update provided:

·            Further clarification was requested on how service requests were prioritised.  In response, Anu Prashar explained that once referred through the Citizen’s Advice Consumer Service the Service used a matrix system approach based on the priorities approved each year as part of the Service Work Plan (taking account of member input through each Boroughs corporate priorities) and further intelligence and risk assessment designed to focus on local, regional and national activity and trends and support a more strategic tactical assessment of how resources were allocated.

·            Further clarification was sought about the type of service requests analysed for investigation by Brent and Harrow.  In response, Anu Prashar advised these involved a wide range of issues including trade businesses such as builders, unsafe or non-compliant goods, breach of contracts and sale of age restricted products.  Members were advised that as part of the prioritisation process each request was categorised by subject matter and also the relevant legislative or regulatory requirements and nature of potential breach(es) involved. This was used to assist as part of the intelligence and risk based approach already outlined and in monitoring trends in order to focus future activity.  Whilst specific intelligence reports generated as a result would be restricted further details on the trends being identified through the process could be made available to Board members, as required.

·            In terms of the work being undertaken to investigate weights and measures scales on local high streets, confirmation was provided that the programme of inspections also included local market stalls and was designed to ensure that the equipment being used was properly calibrated and not subject to any technical defects  Visits included sites across Brent and Harrow with the programme of activity ongoing as part of the Service response in seeking to address the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.

·            In response to a request for further detail on the Primary Authority Scheme offering business support and advice, the Board was advised that this was being led through Brent with the scheme designed to enable businesses to form a statutory partnership with one local authority, providing robust and reliable advice for other councils to take into account when carrying out inspections or addressing non-compliance.  This had resulted in advice being provided to primary authority businesses on issues such as energy labelling, the importing of goods to ensure compliance in the UK market, product safety, recalls and labelling.

·            In commending and supporting the activity focussed around doorstep crime, scams and rouge traders, confirmation was provided for the Board that the call blockers provided to assist residents were TrueCall as opposed to other blocking systems.

·            Details were also sought as to how the Service would define a vulnerable consumer with the Board advised that no specific definition or criteria was used.  The approach followed would depend on the nature of the individual case or complaint and was not purely dependent on the age of the consumer with it recognised that data held by other agencies would also be able to support the identification of more vulnerable individuals or households.

·            Further details were sought about the accessibility of the Citizen’s Advice Consumer Service as a means of residents and businesses being able to raise issues or complaints, including staffing and hours of operation.  In response the Board was advised that the advice service comprised of six contact centres across the country operating under standard working hours with a rapid response process available for serious incidents.  Whilst unable to provide specific details on staffing levels within each centre, assurance was provided on the regional liaison arrangements and performance standards in place relating to call handling within each of the Centres, supported by a process of regular monitoring and partner satisfaction surveys.  In terms of the use of social media to raise service requests the Board was advised that this was not currently offered with consumers and businesses instead being referred to the Citizen’s Advice Consumer Service.

As no further issues were raised the Board thanked officers for the report and their ongoing efforts in delivery of the activity being provided through the Service.  In welcoming and commending the update provided the Joint Board RESOLVED to note and endorse the Trading Standards annual Report for 2023 - 23.