Journal of Trading Standards Summer 2021

✚

Illicit tobacco

A long-term solution to a perennial problem?

✚

Consumer Minister

Paul Scully MP on local government funding

✚

Puppy sales

Tackling the cruel online trade in imported pets

✚

Public engagement

Building stronger links with minority communities

Summer 2021 | www.journaloftradingstandards.co.uk

MURKY WATERS The COVID-19 pandemic accelerates our exposure to the digital world, leading to a wave of online scams and fraudulent product claims

The Basics

Concise Guidance

Detailed Information

Need-to-know on trading law

What, where and how you sell

In-depth detailed guides

KE E P YO UR B U S I N ESS AT I TS PEA K use our free legal advice to stay on top

www.businesscompanion.info

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2021

Leader

GETTING OUT THERE As this issue of the Journal of Trading Standards goes to press, the UK sits poised to enjoy the lifting of remaining lockdown restrictions. While premature celebration would be unwise – there remains the worrying prospect of new COVID-19 variants gaining a foothold – it does feel like things are heading in the right direction, with early June seeing the first day with zero Wendy Potts COVID-19 deaths in the UK for almost a year.

Chair, CTSI It therefore seems appropriate to start looking ahead to a time when things can return to some kind of normality.

This will probably be felt most keenly once we are able to gather together again in large numbers. For CTSI, that means looking forward to Symposium, which this year takes place in September (see page 56). The event “Symposium will be the in Birmingham will, for many of us, be the first time we have been able first time we have been to see our colleagues outside of the tiny rectangle of a Zoom or Teams able to see our colleagues video frame for more than a year. for more than a year” That is likely to be an emotional moment – but it will also be an occasion to take stock of the impact of the virus on consumer protection, and to look ahead at the challenges that have emerged from the pandemic.

As this issue’s cover story (page 16) discusses, technology has ushered in a whole range of issues that pose risks to consumers, from online scams to counterfeit goods on social media – and while these have been around for some time, the enforced isolation caused by lockdown has accelerated existing trends dramatically.

Tackling these emerging risks, as well as the plethora of other challenges facing trading standards – from illicit tobacco sales (page 24) to illegal puppy importers (page 30) – will require fresh, innovative thinking from all of us. It also means we need to develop a better understanding of the communities we serve (page 26), as well as a more accurate picture of the demographics of the trading standards workforce (page 34).

And of course, as it is put to Consumer Minister Paul Scully in this issue’s interview (page 42), it will require proper funding for essential trading standards services.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

Editor-in-Chief:

Eleni Chalkidou Editor:

Richard Young Designer:

Sam Millard Consultant:

Paul Thomas Evans Lead Developer:

Michael Sadler Videographer:

Panji Kaonga Contributors:

Kerry Auger, Kris Hicks, Karin Layton Writers:

Matt Allwright, Alexander Greenwood, Helen Nugent, Jay Moran, Elisabetta Sciallis, Andy Wright, Richard Young Article suggestions and feedback should be sent to: editor@JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk The Journal of Trading Standards magazine and website are produced on contract by Fourth Estate Creative Ltd. www.fourthestatecreative.com connect@fourthestatecreative.com Printed in the UK by Manson Group Distributed by Gold Key Media Published by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, 1 Sylvan Court, Sylvan Way, Southfields Business Park, Basildon SS15 6TH. www.tradingstandards.uk 01268 582 200 © 2021, Chartered Trading Standards Institute. All rights reserved.

Views expressed by the authors are not necessarily the views of CTSI.

| 03

CTSI Animal Health & Welfare Professional Qualification

This new qualification has been developed by CTSI experts and is accepted under the government legislation for all professionals working in animal health and welfare.

Focussing on the legal requirements in relation to the animal health and welfare regulatory framework and the relationship between animal health, animal welfare, the official food and feed controls and public health.

New dates announced For further information visit: www.tradingstandards.uk or email: qualifications@tsi.org.uk

Eleni Chalkidou Eleni is JoTS Editor-in-Chief.

Richard Young

COLUMNS

Richard is JoTS Editor.

Matt Allwright

E D I TO R I A L B OA R D

E D I TO R S

Editorial

John Herriman

Wendy Potts

Robert Taylour

Chief Executive, CTSI

Chair, CTSI

Immediate past-Chair, CTSI

Wendy is also Chair of the Business Members Group and sits on the CTSI Race & Equalities Working Group.

Robert is Chair of the Regulatory Compliance Officer Apprenticeship Scheme and the Race & Equalities Working Group.

John has held various roles in commercial, local government and non-profit organisations.

Matt is a journalist and presenter of the BBC’s Watchdog and Rogue Traders.

Sarah Caughey Sarah is Head of Policy at CTSI.

Laura Kane

C O N T R I B U TO R S

Laura is CTSI Policy Executive.

LEGAL

Alexander Greenwood

Tendy Lindsay

Damien Doherty

David MacKenzie

Chartered Trading Standards Practitioner

Chief Inspector for Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service

Trading Standards Manager, Highland Council

Tendy sits on the CTSI Council and is Chair of the CTSI Race & Equalities Working Group.

Damien has 16 years’ experience and focuses on scams and doorstep crime.

Phil Owen

Gareth Walters

Service Director Profession Relationships, CTSI

Manager, Monmouthshire Trading Standards Service

Phil has experience across private, public and not-forprofit sectors with a focus on regulatory outcomes.

A CTSI Fellow since 2013, Gareth is Branch Secretary for Wales and Chair of the Welsh Animal Health Panel.

Giles Speid

Prof Louise M Hassan

Trading Standards Team Manager, North West Westminster

Professor of Consumer Psychology, Bangor Business School

Giles is a trading standards officer and sits on the Race & Equalities Working Group.

Louise specialises in understanding consumer protection issues.

David is a CTSI Lead Officer for e-Commerce with 27 years’ experience in the trading standards profession.

Alexander is Barrister at Law at Apex Chambers and is a door tenant at Gough Square Chambers.

CPPD

Stephen Mogg Stephen is Lead Trainer at the WRi Academy, where he delivers training modules including the IIP professional practice module for CTSI.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

| 05

Contact Centre Services for Business

Chartered Trading Standards Institute Building Better Business

The business behind your business.

We can provide the experience and skills that help set your business apart.

At CTSI we are proud of our long history of providing services to government and businesses. From consumer law training to bespoke technology systems and contact centre services, our expertise and highly regarded reputation makes us the perfect partners to help your business succeed.

Our brand is trustworthy and reliable and synonymous in protecting consumers and safeguarding businesses.

Alignment with the CTSI brand offers a way for your business to distinguish its offering from that of your competitors.

Do you need help handling your customer enquiries or dealing with complaints?

Our experienced contact centre team are proud to hold the highly regarded government-backed accolade of Customer Services Excellence, providing assurances that your customer service reputation is safe in our hands.

Contact and call centre services Consumer law advice training Call handling training Software and platform support Customer service delivery and training Complaint and escalation handling CRM design and integration Business continuity Quality monitoring and improvement Website integration and self-help mechanisms

CTSI’s extensive range of business support services also include: Auditing and Accreditation | Business Support and Advice | Finance and Administration | Business Training & Consultancy

Building Better Business Visit: www.tradingstandards.uk/commercial-services

Contents NEWS & FEATURES

08 | Upfront

COVER STORY

FEATURE

16

30

Our regular look at the headline news in trading standards.

13 | Opinion: Matt Allwright Consumer protection should top the political agenda, but can seem like an afterthought.

14 | Opinion: Sarah Caughey The challenges facing trading standards make it difficult to see the bigger picture.

22 | No short measures

An alcohol fraud prosecution shows the value of good old-fashioned investigations.

24 | Stubbing out illicit tobacco Putting a permanent stop to illegal tobacco can be achieved by taking a novel approach.

Tackling digital detriment Technology has created new opportunities for consumer harm. How can trading standards keep up with such rapid change?

Beware of the dog dealers Pictures of cute puppies for sale online often conceal a darker reality of animal cruelty and emotional exploitation.

FEATURE

FEATURE

26

46

28 | Taken for a ride An investigation into a parking services scam proves the value of persistence.

34 | Who are you?

A comprehensive survey of the profession will highlight obstacles we must overcome.

36 | Opinion: Laura Kane

How trading standards benefits from the expertise of CTSI’s Lead Officers.

38 | A good use of energy A recent campaign tackled the mis-selling of energy efficiency products in Scotland.

40 | On the home front

Community service Two projects in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets demonstrate the benefits of engaging with the local community.

New country, new customs Perhaps the most noticeable immediate effect of EU Exit for UK consumers is being felt when buying goods from abroad.

INTERVIEW

FEATURE

42

56

What impact has the Tenant Fees Act 2019 had on the lives of tenants?

48 | CPPD Investigative skills must be used within a specific legal framework to be effective.

52 | Legal

New guidelines on information sharing have real implications for trading standards.

58 | Last Word

Why knowing what’s in the food we eat can be a matter of life and death.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

In conversation: Paul Scully MP The Consumer Minister talks about what he thinks are the pressing issues facing trading standards in modern Britain.

CTSI Symposium 2021 The event, which takes place in Birmingham in September, will be CTSI’s first get-together in more than two years.

| 07

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2021

Upfront 60 SECONDS

RACE & EQUALITY

HOLIDAY SCAM WARNING Trading Standards Scotland is warning holidaymakers to be on their guard against scams this summer. With international travel restrictions still in place, many holidaymakers are likely to book accommodation within the UK this year. The warning comes following a large number of issues with bookings reported in 2020.

FOOD DEAL CONCERNS CTSI has raised concerns about the possible impacts on food standards of a trade deal between the UK and Australia.

CTSI Lead Officer for Food, David Pickering, said: "The discussion about allowing hormone-injected meat into the UK consumer market concerns me deeply."

(See In Conversation, page 42.)

MAIL OPT-OUT ALARM Fraud disruption work carried out by London Trading Standards (LTS) has revealed that a significant number of businesses have opted out of receiving mail, so consumer complaints may never reach them. LTS has warned that malpractice by companies which use mail forwarding services is in breach of the law.

NEW CTSI PRESIDENT CTSI has appointed Lord Lindsay as its new President. Lord Lindsay has been a Vice-President of CTSI for many years and is currently Chairman of UKAS, the UK’s National Accreditation Body. He has previously served s President of several organisations, including the National Trust for Scotland.

08 |

CTSI SIGNS RACE AT WORK CHARTER Following the formation of the CTSI Race and Equalities Working Group last year, the Institute is continuing in its commitment to equality

CTSI has signed up to the Business in the Community (BITC) Race at Work Charter, which sets out five calls to action to ensure that ethnic minority employees are represented at all levels in an organisation. The Institute has committed to: ▪ appoint an Executive Sponsor for race; ▪ capture ethnicity data and publicise progress; ▪ commit at Board level to zero tolerance of harassment and bullying; ▪ make clear that supporting equality in the workplace is the responsibility of all leaders and managers;

▪ take action that supports ethnic minority career progression.

Tendy Lindsay, Chair of the CTSI Race and Equalities Working Group, said: “It is an honour that CTSI have signed up to the Race at Work Charter. I look forward to working to implement the five Charter principles.”

CTSI’s new Chief Executive, John Herriman, commented: “It’s so important to commit to being anti-racist as an organisation and I’m very proud that CTSI has joined the other signatories to the BITC Race at Work Charter.”

(Read about CTSI's new Workforce Survey on page 34.)

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2021

BREAK DOWN

“Sometimes austerity involves sudden rupture: an immediate loss of services that we notice and protest against. More often it’s death by a thousand cuts: incremental destruction of the public realm, leaving us with outsourced, inaccessible, dysfunctional services.”

Key quotes and numbers highlight the reality of cuts to trading standards

George Monbiot | in his May 12 Guardian column about diminishing funding for consumer protection

27%

decrease in local Citizens Advice access points, 2009-2019 (Source: Unchecked.uk)

£16bn

reduction in core Government funding to local authorities over the past decade

£1.83

average spend per head of population on trading standards in 2018-19, a 4% annual drop

52%

decline in total net spend by local authorities on trading standards services in England, 2009-2019

“Many trading standards services have less than five full-time equivalent staff and only one fully qualified Trading Standards Officer. While trading standards professionals are trying their very best, it often feels as if the dice are loaded against them due to a lack of investment.”

John Herriman | Chief Executive, Chartered Trading Standards Institute

Success stories Examples of trading standards making a difference in communities across the UK

Puppy importer jailed An investigation by Dorset Council Trading Standards has resulted in the imprisonment of a man who illegally imported puppies into the UK. Peter Graham Harman was sentenced to two years and four months in prison at Bournemouth Crown Court on May 17.

(For more on illicit puppy sales, see page 30.)

Tobacco seller fined

Anti-loan shark fund

A shopkeeper who continued to sell illegal cigarettes despite two previous raids

by Salford City Council Trading Standards has been fined. Shujat Ali was fined £780, ordered to pay £740 costs and a £30 victim surcharge at Manchester & Salford Magistrates Court on May 20. (For more on illicit tobacco see pages 24 & 26.)

The criminal proceeds of loan sharks are being made available to organisations whose work tackles illegal money lending.

The England Illegal Money Lending Team (IMLT) is awarding grants to fund community projects and has spent £774,000 of proceeds of crime on anti-loan shark initiatives in the past three years.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

Rogue agents pay up A London-wide trading standards campaign has enforced fines of up to £30,000 for letting agents that fail to protect landlords’ and tenants’ money.

The campaign, led by London Trading Standards, identified hundreds of cases where there was evidence of a breach of the law. (For more on rogue agents, see page 40.)

CCAS adds up The Consumer Codes Approval Scheme's latest annual report demonstrates how it has helped consumers and businesses alike during a tumultuous year. The scheme recovered £2m in compensation for consumers via the complaints and dispute resolution mechanisms to which code members subscribe in 2019-2020.

| 09

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2021

Upfront

VOICES FROM THE FRONT LINE

“With over 95% of businesses in Cornwall being SMEs it was important that they had a local, friendly face to turn to”

Are there any trading standards issues that are particularly prevalent in your area?

Allergens are a recurring problem, as are counterfeiting matters.

Travel companies feature regularly in consumer complaints.

Peter Adshead PRINCIPAL TRADING STANDARDS OFFICER, SLOUGH TRADING STANDARDS What has been your main focus over the past six months?

Given the fact that we are all working from home, we have had to concentrate on COVID-19 issues that relate to refunds in the travel sector, venues such as wedding hotels and observance of the legal requirements by businesses such as the use of face masks and social distancing.

We have also been looking at allergenic ingredients, doorstep selling of services such as roofing as well as being involved with legacy cases such as counterfeit and illicit tobacco, car accessories and skin lightening creams that contained a banned substance.

“The difference we can make to local business and residents is immense, so investment would certainly pay off”

10 |

Have you been able to return to ‘normal’ activities with the easing of lockdown measures?

Not at this time. We are a small department of four officers plus a manager who is also a licensing manager. Due to a reorganisation we have also lost a qualified food officer and a trading standards practitioner. Personally, given my age, I do not envisage returning to the office until at least June 21.

What do you think is the main challenge confronting trading standards enforcement? What should the Government be doing to address this?

Dedicated and ringfenced funding of the service should be a priority.

We have lost so many posts over the past years that this is a service that exists from day to day. The difference we can make to local business and residents is immense, so investment would certainly pay off.

The public have been fed a diet of ‘trading standards can fix this and need to be aware that this’ – that is not the case. A May 12 article in the Guardian by George Monbiot sums up the situation.

Two front-line trading standards officers discuss COVID-19, funding and the challenges of EU Exit.

Fraser Glennie TRADING STANDARDS ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, CORNWALL COUNCIL What has been your main focus over the past six months?

The main area of focus has been,supporting businesses through EU Exit. We teamed up with our local Growth Hub to help local businesses prepare for the end of the transition period and beyond.

With over 95% of businesses in Cornwall being SMEs it was important that they had a local, friendly face to turn to. We have also been assisting producers of our four Protected Food Names, not just with EU transition, but also with the new trade deals to ensure that they can look after the food names they have worked so hard to protect in new markets.

Are there any trading standards issues that are particularly prevalent in your area?

‘Brand Cornwall’ is worth a lot to the local economy, in both the food and crafts markets, and as such there has always been the

temptation for certain products to be marketed as ‘Cornish’ when they may not be. During inspections we spend some time ensuring that any ‘Cornish’ claims are exactly that and we take an active role in certifying all of Cornwall’s Protected Food Name producers and Made in Cornwall Scheme members.

We also have a very entrepreneurial business population which means that many will diversify and expand their product range into areas where they may not have the requisite knowledge or experience, so we need to keep an eye on what’s going on in this regard.

Have you been able to return to ‘normal’ activities with the easing of lockdown measures?

From a service delivery perspective, lots of our activities have continued throughout the pandemic. For example, we still have an animal health team, so they have continued to operate as the majority of their visits are outside.

We are also taking part in the FSA Food Standards Pilot, which permits remote interventions (in

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2021

some circumstances), so this has allowed us to target and plan our physical inspections. We are still being encouraged to work from home, which brings benefits and challenges in equal measure.

What do you think is the main challenge confronting trading standards enforcement? What should the Government be doing to address this?

The constant under-resourcing of public services is an obvious place to start, but it’s not just the relentless cuts to funding that is harming our profession, it’s the assumption that comes with this political strategy that what we do is undesirable, unnecessary and bad for business or the economy.

The Government should recognise the wide range of work (and responsibilities) asked of trading standards and acknowledge the positive impact that such work is having on every aspect of our society, whether that be consumers, businesses, residents, our environment or the economy.

In addition to this, I think we also need to think about how we provide training. Over the years that I have been in trading standards the number of ‘in person’ meetings and training courses has reduced. Although I understand the reasons why, having that personal contact allows you to connect with people in a different way, and you are more likely to share expertise in the future.

For a shrinking profession, that is becoming ever more important.

I still keep in touch with people I studied with 10 years ago; it’s always good to have a second opinion on matters.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

VIEW FROM THE TOP CTSI’s new Chief Executive, John Herriman, explains why he is proud to lead the Institute – and why it will have a crucial role to play in shaping the UK’s future The one thing I’ve noticed since arriving at CTSI is the strong sense of social purpose that binds the trading standards profession together. This social purpose is why we have such a long and proud history of serving communities and why trading standards is relied upon to protect the public. Trading standards is always called upon when there is a crisis, as the COVID-19 pandemic has once again shown us.

The other thing that has struck me, as someone coming in from outside the profession, is the sheer breadth, scale and diversity of what trading standards professionals do. Everything is touched in some way, shape or form by our work – the range of articles in this edition of JTS illustrates that.

We are also now living in a world that has changed dramatically. We have budget cuts to local authorities that started over a decade ago.

Plus, we now have the dramatic changes to the landscape caused by EU Exit, the pandemic and the significant changes in consumer behaviour driving an explosion in e-commerce.

Against this backdrop, the role of trading standards has never been more important, and the public needs protection now more than ever. However, consumer protection faces unprecedented challenges because we have less capacity to do it and there is a very fragmented consumer protection landscape.

Ultimately, this is all about the consumers we are here to protect by ensuring they aren’t harmed, while supporting businesses to help them trade fairly. The social and economic consequences of the pandemic mean that far more consumers are vulnerable and therefore need more protection. We also witness ongoing issues exposing people to risk; for example, there was another recent fire at a housing block, thankfully contained but only just, with the same dangerous cladding used in Grenfell Tower.

I do not underestimate the challenge because

money will continue to be tight, and austerity is here to stay. But in that situation, in my mind, a healthy society seeks to protect those that need protecting, and that is where our social purpose as a profession naturally kicks in. So we need to look at where the opportunities exist to build back capacity into the consumer protection system to ensure we can play our role in strengthening the front line, influencing and shaping what that system needs to look like in the future. I’m therefore looking forward to responding to the imminent ‘Modernising consumer markets’ white paper.

“In my mind, a healthy society seeks to protect those that need protecting, and that is where our social purpose as a profession naturally kicks in” It is a system that the public and businesses need to trust because with confident consumers and thriving enterprises working in a new context of global Britain, we can help support a prosperous economy. That, for me, is the real value trading standards adds to the country and it is why we have to ensure that the Government and the wider public understand our crucial role in the recovery – in which CTSI has a pivotal part to play. In ten years, when we get to CTSI’s 150th anniversary, I want us all to look back with pride at how we, as a profession representative of all the communities we serve, responded to these profound challenges by focusing on those we protect and ensuring that trading standards was a critical factor in the country’s success.

| 11

do you PASS ?

helping you prevent underage sales

UNDERAGE SALES TRAINING – HELPING TO PROMOTE AND MAINTAIN COMPLIANCE IN YOUR LOCAL AREA. This online tool provides all the necessary materials for local authorities to deliver face-to-face training to retailers for the prevention of underage sales.

Suitable for all levels of staff, providing advice and guidance on:

What the law requires

Proxy sales

What is due diligence

Challenge 25

Proof of age

Refusals

All materials are CTSI accredited and include: Trainer Pack 3 Presentation 3 Delegate test papers 3 Answer sheets 3 Certificate template Retailer Resource Pack 3 Posters 3 Guidance sheets 3 Refusal of sale log 3 PASS Card recognition guide 3 Declaration form

The low-cost annual fee includes unlimited downloads of all materials. No restrictions on how and when you deliver this training, or the rate you charge, puts you in control to generate additional income for your service.

www.tradingstandards.uk/doyoupass

To subscribe to do you PASS? or for more information contact the team on tel: 01268 886697 or email: productinfo@tsi.org.uk

Matt Allwright

Matt Allwright Matt is a journalist and presenter of the BBC’s Watchdog and Rogue Traders.

Vanishing act Consumer protection should be at the top of the political agenda – but these days it often appears to be an afterthought

I’m just a bit surprised that the Consumer Minister’s role isn’t a constant, distinct and highly-valued public position

Summer 2021

It’s a sign of my age that there are many things which don’t appear to be where I left them. Keys, phones, passports, pets etc. My wife explains this by saying that Past Matt isn’t helping Future Matt by leaving them in a place where they should be found (the key hook) instead of a place where they won’t (toe of a disused welly).

Past Matt needs to help Present Matt find the Consumer Minister. He distinctly remembers seeing one pop up from time to time over the last 40 years, but then just like the car keys or his driving licence, there are other times when he’s had to go rummaging through all his coat pockets to locate them. A thorough Wiki-search of cabinets dating back to 1979 reveals the truth: Consumer Ministers have been a bit of a luxury item over the years, like a fondue set or a foot spa. Announced with a fanfare, largely unused, and then dismissed in silence to the loft or a boot sale.

Maggie had a couple in her first four years, then dropped the idea completely until John Major appointed Earl Ferrers for almost a WHOLE YEAR before abolishing the post in ’95. Blair took a little while to catch on (in ’99, when we were largely shop-based, we had a minister for E-Commerce, not Consumer Affairs) but after the millennium the role flipped and flopped between combined roles with Competition and Markets and then Employment Relations.

The post probably peaked in 2015 when our Consumer Minster actually managed to get a piece of substantial, stick-to-the-wall-it’s-done legislation passed in the form

of the monumental Consumer Rights Act 2015. Since then, it’s interesting to look at how it has been blended with others: first the title was Small Business, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility. Since 2020 it’s Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets. So you have a minister who has to listen to small businesses AND consumers and draw up policy for both.

Maybe Minister for Shopping needs a rebrand. Compare this to the top Google result for a Consumer Minister: India. They’ve had a Consumer Minister in post since independence in 1947. Lord Mountbatten was one. The role is combined with food and public distribution – getting the things everyone needs to them at the right price.

Suddenly, you’re in charge of everything.

I suppose my point, as much as I have one, is this: considering how much the quality of our lives depends on the sort of deal we are getting as consumers, I’m just a bit surprised that the Consumer Minister’s role isn’t a constant, distinct and highlyvalued public position. I visit a hospital once in a blue moon. I buy something at least once a day. Why aren’t there politicians queuing up to show us how they will get us a better, fairer deal? n

| 13

Think Piece

Feeling puzzled?

The many complex and interlocking challenges facing trading standards at the moment make it important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture

By Sarah Caughey CTSI Head of Policy

14 |

I don’t know about you, but over the past 15 months I have tried various ways to keep entertained during the pandemic.

I have cracked open books from that neglected “must read” pile and revisited old hobbies (my husband is still waiting for that pair of mittens I promised to knit him for Christmas). I was not alone in also rediscovering that rainy-day staple the jigsaw puzzle, which provides hours of distraction and frustration.

The Guardian has reported a bonanza on jigsaws, stating that UK sales reached £100m in 2020, which is up 38% on the previous year.

Confronted with all the individual pieces (500, 1000… up to 51,300), how do you begin the endeavour of assembling the jigsaw into the picture displayed on the front of the box? You start with the corner pieces, then move on the edges.

From here, it takes time and patience to complete the picture, but the corners and edges provide the frame for it all to come together, piece by piece.

Making sense of it all In considering the landscape and context in which trading standards operates now, and for the future, the jigsaw seems to be an appropriate analogy. Recent times have witnessed a wide range of changes and challenges: from dealing with the pandemic, to exiting the EU, to the rapid growth and development of online markets. These, combined with matters that have been in the pipeline, means that there is a real puzzle to solve.

Christmas Eve 2020 brought the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) which set the parameters for the future economic partnership. The provisions may be implemented into UK law and the consent of the European Parliament granted; however, EU Exit is by no means done and dusted. Indeed, the Institute for Government posits that it is “…too early to fully understand the long-term impact of the new barriers to trade with the EU erected by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, or to disentangle the Brexit

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

Recent times have witnessed a wide range of changes and challenges… this means there is a real puzzle to solve

effect from the impact of the pandemic.”1 Alongside the TCA is the Northern Ireland Protocol – which came into force on January 1, 2021 and is designed to allow the free movement of goods from the EU into NI, and prevent the need for a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Since coming into force, challenges around the operational implications of the Protocol arrangement have been emerging, and even precipitated the initiation of formal legal proceedings by the EU against the UK. It is clear that the implications and practical out-workings of these provisions and arrangements as implementation unfolds and “business as usual” resumes, together with the wider impacts of exiting the EU need to be considered, examined and monitored. As EU law continues to evolve and develop, there will be important questions regarding potential for divergence and the post-Brexit regulatory landscape.

The UK Product Safety framework is currently under review by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS). In the Call for Evidence, OPSS is seeking views on the longer-term approach to product safety and ensuring that the framework is fit for the future. The Call for Evidence explores the impacts of

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

the rapid escalation of online shopping, the changes to and complexity of supply chains, and the ever-evolving nature of technological advances, and how to ensure that the framework protects everyone (see cover story, page 16).

Seeking clarity The ‘Modernising consumer markets: green paper’ was published by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in April 2018.

The response in the form of a command paper is still in the works. The progress has no doubt been hampered by ministerial changes and the pandemic.

It is hoped that the path is now clear for BEIS to elucidate their proposals. With present and future challenges to be tackled, the pending paper will surely pose pivotal questions for the profession, the enforcement system and the wider consumer protection landscape.

There are important cross-cutting issues to consider. For example, the opportunities and challenges of the unrelenting growth and development of online marketplaces should not be underestimated as they will have considerable impacts for consumers and business, and therefore trading standards.

There are also specific issues to fit

into the puzzle. In January 2021, the establishment of a new regulator for construction products operating within the OPSS was announced. It will have the power to remove any product from the market that presents a significant safety risk and prosecute any companies who flout the rules on product safety.

The press release stated that the regulator will “work with the Building Safety Regulator and Trading Standards to encourage and enforce compliance”.

We await further details and will be looking for opportunities to engage on this matter.

And no doubt there will be further pieces to fit into the puzzle. It may even feel like the UK is trying to complete a jigsaw without the picture on the front of the box! However, it is clear that trading standards responsibilities and expertise in areas such as metrology, animal health, fair trading, product safety and much more are fundamental, foundational pieces of the puzzle.

Simply put, the UK needs trading standards. Strong, sustainable trading standards services are crucial to making that big picture an “on the ground” reality across the UK. Therefore, securing the future sustainability of the profession must not be the missing piece of the puzzle.

Investing in the profession ensures the expertise to support businesses in recovery from the pandemic and navigating new trading contexts. It ensures the knowledge and commitment to protect consumers, whether from unsafe products in their homes or when engaging with online markets. We also need to look to the future, to ensure that the profession is ready for what is on, and over, the horizon.

In order to complete the UK’s desired picture of ensuring consumers are protected and confident, and that businesses are equipped to recover, grow and thrive, a strong, vibrant and sustainable trading standards profession is crucial.

Without it, the UK will be left puzzled. ■ 1. The end of the Brexit transition period - Was the UK prepared? Joe Marshall, Maddy Thimont Jack and Nick Jones, Institute for Government (March 2021)

| 15

Cover story

By Helen Nugent

TACKLING DIGITAL DETRIMENT 16 |

FROM A SURGE IN SCAMS TO THE COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY, THE WAY TECHNOLOGY HAS INFILTRATED OUR LIVES HAS CREATED NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR CONSUMER HARM. HOW CAN TRADING STANDARDS KEEP PACE WITH SUCH RAPID CHANGE?

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“NOW WE’RE ALL IN OUR LITTLE BUBBLES...

WE FALL INTO THE MORE SUSCEPTIBLE GROUP AND WE’RE ALL AT RISK”

In the world of e-commerce crime and online scams, it seems that nothing is off limits. While millions of people have died and millions more have had their lives ruined, fraudsters have viewed the global pandemic as an opportunity to deceive and to profit.

As our way of life has changed fundamentally – and perhaps irrevocably – the criminals have adapted to take advantage of people while they’re at their most vulnerable. The methods are myriad, from fake texts purporting to be from delivery companies and PayPal forgeries, to supermarket scams and counterfeit COVID testing kits. There have also been National Insurance number deceptions and banking scams sent via text messages.

Consider recent statistics from Citizens Advice. Since March 2020, its online scams page has recorded more than 800,000 views – an increase of 158% on

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

the year before. Meanwhile, during the early stages of lockdown, its one-to-one online and phone advice services were averaging around 3,000 scam cases each month. Since September 2020, this has rocketed to 10,000 per month.

Tracking consumer behaviour Jon Walters, Consumer Service Delivery Manager at Citizens Advice, says: “These scams cover all manner of things, from fake investments and sham health products to dating fraud and bogus dog breeders. We’ve also seen scams directly relating to the pandemic – non-existent PPE, fake lockdown fines and scam vaccines. It’s clear that opportunists are taking advantage of the public’s current concerns regarding their health, wellbeing and finances.”

As Citizens Advice found, as habits have altered over the past year, so the scammers have responded to that shift. Trading

standards officers have also witnessed this trend, as Katherine Hart, CTSI Lead Officer for doorstep crime, explains.

“We are all ordering more and more things online and we are likely to share a bit more of our personal details than we ever would before. And this is how the scammers are operating. They are aware of the changes in consumer behaviour.”

She adds: “As far as fake platform scams are concerned, I think it’s because people are homeworking that you don’t have the same networks as you had. So you might be in the office, something came through, and you’d be speaking to somebody about it. You’d be chatting and I think you’d be more aware of the potential of a scam. Whereas now we’re all in our little bubbles, or have been in our little bubbles, with lockdown loneliness, boredom and everything else. We then fall into the more susceptible group and we’re all at risk.”

| 17

Cover story

By Helen Nugent

Exploiting vulnerability As has long been the case, it’s almost impossible to keep up with the everevolving nature of e-commerce criminal activity. In the last few months alone, trading standards has received all manner of evidence relating to dubious practices, including texts mimicking PayPal messages informing the recipient that someone has logged onto their account.

The recipient is then asked to tap a link to a bogus website with the ultimate aim of gaining access to their legitimate PayPal account.

Then there are the phoney Asda and Morrisons delivery texts where scammers claim that ‘your Asda order is out for delivery’ with a link supposedly allowing the recipient to track the van driver’s progress. In truth, the fraudsters are after an individual’s personal details. Similar scams include those impersonating genuine delivery companies and the Royal Mail.

There’s even been a postal scam using fraudulent CTSI information. In this instance, the letters were clad in CTSI branding and informed the recipient that insurance scammers had been caught, meaning that the individual should fill out a ‘creditors debt form’ as part of a socalled compensation scheme. Needless to say, completing the form put the finances of the respondent at risk.

It’s easy to fall victim to these targeted scams in a world where many people are expecting deliveries of groceries and other goods. As Hart says: “It’s exploiting our weaknesses and exploiting this problem that we’re all facing.”

As travel restrictions begin to ease, various enforcers, including trading standards and Action Fraud, are urging the public to remain vigilant about

18 |

holiday fraud. The lifting of lockdown also means that fraudsters are poised to target the public with ticketing and health insurance scams. Trading Standards Scotland (TSS) has recently issued a warning on holiday scams following a large number of consumer issues with bookings reported in 2020, including false accommodation listings on social media and made-up reviews on travel websites. Last year, holidaymakers were left in tears after paying hundreds of pounds in cash for caravan breaks advertised on social media which turned out to be fake.

But that’s not the only area of concern for the future. “The new scams at the moment are very much the delivery scams,” says Hart. “We’ve still got HMRC scams and we’ve still got vaccination scams, whether that’s buying testing kits or buying vaccination-type certificates, it’s always around the themes of what the Government is putting out.

I suspect the next thing will be about vaccination passports.

“The scammers exploit the current crisis and the fact that we don’t actually know an awful lot about it.”

“IT’S ALMOST LIKE A TIPPING POINT ACCELERATION WHERE WHAT WOULD HAVE PROBABLY TAKEN THREE TO FIVE YEARS HAS HAPPENED IN ONE YEAR”

Collaborative economy David MacKenzie, CTSI Joint Lead Officer for E-commerce, agrees that when our behaviour changes, so does the action taken by scammers. He believes that the pandemic has accelerated a change in our buying and selling habits. “It’s almost like a tipping point acceleration where what would have probably taken three to five years has happened in one year.

Everybody is buying more online.”

He continues: “Mostly, it increases people’s opportunity for choice, and it’s allowed people to sell things that they

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“THE ENFORCEMENT END OF THINGS IS STILL THERE, WE STILL DO IT, BUT IT’S MOSTLY ABOUT PREVENTION. SO IT HAS TO BE ABOUT GETTING THE MESSAGE OUT TO CONSUMERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES”

probably wouldn’t have been able to sell in the past. But the bad elements come with it and it’s our job to try and identify them and to try and tackle them.”

The rise in popularity of online marketplaces during COVID – the likes of eBay and peer-to-peer platforms – and the embracing of the collaborative economy (initiatives such as Airbnb and Uber) has led to a rise in issues for enforcers.

Walters at Citizens Advice says that the service dealt with nearly 20,000 cases relating to online marketplaces over the past year, compared to 12,000 the year before.

There’s no doubt that trading standards and Citizens Advice are carrying out their duties under particularly difficult circumstances, as is the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which says it is taking action to ensure that people are not misled on digital platforms.

A CMA spokesperson says: “It is vital that consumers are protected online, as

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

well as offline. To help boost consumer trust and transparency, we’ve launched investigations to tackle the posting and trading of fake and misleading online reviews on many digital platforms, and we’ve also clamped down on influencers posting undisclosed social media endorsements.

“We will continue to use the full range of our powers to promote effective competition in digital markets and deliver for the benefit of consumers, businesses and the economy.”

Better than a cure MacKenzie says that a big part of enforcement activity is related to prevention – that means the public taking steps to protect themselves.

“I would always cite three things: prevention, disruption and enforcement.

And that’s absolutely the case with this.

In fact, probably prevention is the most important one.

“These people – the scammers – are based overseas or we don’t know who they are. And there’s so many of them and there’s so few of us now. The enforcement end of things is still there, we still do it, but it’s mostly about prevention. So it has to be about getting the message out to consumers and small businesses.”

MacKenzie believes that there is a crucial misconception when it comes to the criminals and what they are doing.

“The vast majority of e-crime, like the vast majority of all crime, is low-tech. It’s about bombarding people with texts and emails, and trying to get the recipients to let their guard down and click on the links they contain. They send these electronic messages to millions of people in the hope that they’ll get a few thousand bites to take it to the next stage so they can get people’s details.

“Therefore, fairly simple and straightforward good practices are actually quite effective. We’re not talking

| 19

Cover story

By Helen Nugent

47

%

RISE IN ONLINE SALES IN THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF THE PANDEMIC (Source: OPSS)

158

%

INCREASE IN SCAMS SINCE MARCH 2020 (Source: Citizens Advice)

about super-duper Russian and Chinese cyberhackers, we’re talking about some poor soul somewhere in the world uploading data as instructed by their criminal bosses in a repetitive, quite predictable and reasonably easy to spot manner.”

However, it’s important not to overload consumers with e-crime and scam warnings. Yes, there are new fraudulent activities every day but bombarding people with preventative steps could do more harm than good.

“We have to be really selective and careful with what we proactively put out,” says MacKenzie. “Getting that balance right between people being tired of it and keeping the message out there is key.”

Nevertheless, there are crucial things that buyers and sellers need to know, he says. While services and goods offered by the collaborative economy can provide useful opportunities for people, it’s hard when things go wrong.

“There’s a cliff face when someone goes from being a private seller to being a business seller, and the legal position

20 |

changes enormously. There are all kinds of safety obligations and the buyer has all sorts of consumer rights. And the problem is that there isn’t a clear definition of what a consumer seller is and what a business seller is. This has been a challenge for us since I started in the job 30 years ago.

“If it’s a private seller and the goods are faulty, there’s no protection, there’s no breach of contract there. Whereas if it’s a business there’s a whole list of things that it has to comply with.”

Government line At the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), officials say that keeping people safe is the Government’s top priority, and it is the seller’s responsibility to meet product safety law before putting any product on sale.

Graham Russell, OPSS Chief Executive, says: “OPSS support the work of trading standards teams dealing with unsafe products including through support to testing budgets. And, with trading standards, we are actively identifying products that pose a serious risk but are

available online and we ensure online platforms remove unsafe products from sale.

“As use of online platforms has risen, with the proportion of online sales rising by 47% in the first six months of the pandemic, we work with Primary Authorities to engage with the platforms and reinforce the primacy of public safety.

“As an example, OPSS carried out an investigation into pool immersion heaters, particularly those sold through online platforms, because of the risks from burning or electrocution. The dangers were heightened last summer as the pandemic meant many families stayed at home.”

He continues: “The Call for Evidence issued by OPSS in March will consider the growth of online shopping and the important implications this raises for product safety and standards. It will explore how the UK responds quickly to emerging threats and opportunities for product safety, including digital technologies and new ways of supplying products.”

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

10,000

20,000

SCAMS PER MONTH SINCE SEPTEMBER 2020 (Source: Citizens Advice)

COMPLAINTS ABOUT ONLINE MARKETPLACES (Source: Citizens Advice)

“THE PROBLEM IS THAT THERE ISN’T A CLEAR DEFINITION OF WHAT A CONSUMER SELLER IS AND WHAT A BUSINESS SELLER IS” At the coalface In the meantime, how hard is it for trading standards to root out the wrongdoers?

“From an enforcement point of view, it’s very difficult because a lot of the time people won’t pass these details on, and particularly people who are victims of scams,” says Hart. “They are too embarrassed. I can understand that. So what we try and encourage people to do is the anonymous reporting, and report it to Action Fraud or at the Government sites that have been set up for these things. And you can report nuisance calls to Ofcom.”

As for prosecutions, Hart says that it’s “incredibly difficult”.

“This is why, as enforcement agencies, we have to work together and it’s very much about the prevention side of things.

We’ve also got to look at the enablers, the

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

people who are facilitating it to a certain extent, whether that’s the telephone providers or the internet providers.

There’s a lot of work that we need to get ourselves involved with to try and stop these enablers facilitating the scammers.”

Of course, the pandemic hasn’t made things any easier for trading standards when it comes to enforcement. As MacKenzie says: “To a large extent, it’s demonstrated that a lot can be done from remote working. But it’s not perfect.

We’ve not found a way to replicate the in-person collaboration. However clever we are at doing things remotely, and we are doing things like taking statements from witnesses on Zoom and Teams, there is definitely a loss there. We cannot do everything like this.”

In MacKenzie’s local area of the Highlands, trading standards is dealing with what they call hoax location scams.

Put simply, these are e-crimes that use fictitious Highland addresses that may damage the region’s reputation as a place to visit or do business. With a relatively small population spread across

a large geographical area, scammers take advantage of these characteristics by trying to hide their true location or by misleadingly associating themselves with reputable Highland commerce.

“It’s a total scam, a total fraud. They choose an address in a remote part of the country, so we get this a lot in the Highlands.”

MacKenzie believes that trading standards needs specific content takedown powers. “It might be a whole website, it might be an account on a website, or it might just be a product advert. At the moment, we’ll find a problem and we’ll try and get an intermediary to take some sort of action to disrupt it [such as the host of the website or a social media platform].

“Getting intermediaries to have a positive influence on this is really important as there are far too many people selling things for us to reach them all. Our resources are so small compared to this enormous internet, e-commerce world and if we can work with other enforcers, then we really need to be doing that.” ■

| 21

Alcohol fraud

By Jay Moran

“Trading standards can have a key role in ensuring that, into the future, a fair and equitable marketplace exists” checks are being made. But in this new landscape and opportunity for change, who will be doing these checks and how often will they be done?

No short measures The recent prosecution of a pub manager found selling watered-down spirits demonstrates the value of good oldfashioned investigations in boosting consumer confidence At the time of writing the UK hospitality sector, including businesses that sell food and drink, is recovering from what has been the most dramatic and difficult period of trading for decades. If there is to be a successful restart of the hospitality industry, then what better time for trading standards to reconsider its approach to regulating this highly significant marketplace?

Trading standards can have a key role in ensuring that, into the future, a fair and equitable marketplace exists.

Perhaps the best way of doing this is by taking a look back at what once worked well at local level, such as regular visible presence in the local business community by way of inspections, including making checks on the authenticity of alcoholic drinks.

22 |

For many years now there have been intelligence-led operating models in place to help prioritise trading standards activities. They work well for well-reported issues that have a high visibility to the public like counterfeiting, doorstep crime, scams and rogue trading.

But what about for subject areas where the source and collection of intelligence is low and underreported but the likelihood of non-compliance and even fraud could be high? Weights and measures checks at licensed premises to test for the correct measure and product being poured were one of the first visits trainee TSOs would perform during their training period and an activity that was widely conducted across the country for many years until the last decade or so. The public are likely to still believe that these regular

Boots on the ground A successful prosecution recently brought by Cheshire West and Chester Council highlighted how there could be significant issues in relation to watered spirits being sold to the public in licensed premises. I visited the premises, along with other council officers, in the early evening of November 2019 to conduct an unannounced joint food safety and food standards inspection visit.

The premise was a former pub that had been converted into a Chinese restaurant and takeaway while still retaining the public bar areas for customers to use. We tested a number of spirit drinks within the bar area and discovered that a significant number appeared to be much lower than their legal limit of 0.3% ABV. These suspect bottles were taken as formal samples/ evidence and sent for analysis, and almost all were confirmed by the lab as failures.

In total, nine separate charges were successfully prosecuted for watered spirits in court in January 2021, against the manager and the business, who combined were ordered to pay almost £2,500, including fines, costs and victim surcharges. The defendants had cooperated throughout and pled guilty at an early stage.

The judge stated in his summing up that although the case may not be linked directly to food safety, the public had a right to expect to be given what they had asked for when ordering alcoholic drinks. One of the cornerstones of trading standards is that the public get what they expect when purchasing goods.

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

This was a chance inspection find, as the testing of alcoholic drinks had likely not taken place in Cheshire West for quite some time as a routine activity.

It was actually the first time I had taken the kit out to test drinks since joining the authority in July 2019, mainly to train the other officer in spirit drink testing, and this was only the second premises visited on the day where we used it. Statistically that perhaps shows something of relevance.

This was the most extreme case of watering down I had ever encountered in my 15 or so years in the trading standards profession and the defence provided was equally something I had never heard of before: the manager told me that when he refilled the old wall-mounted spirit bottles, using spirits of the same brand from new smaller bottles, he would then rinse them with tap water to extract any further alcohol to then add to the oldwall mounted bottles. This for a start concerned me as not the best practice for traceability purposes. That he was rinsing the bottles, not to make money but to save alcohol was the defence carried throughout the investigation.

Bringing the prosecution During the investigation process, various applicable legislation was considered by Cheshire West’s legal team and the case was eventually brought and prosecuted under the Food Safety Act 1990 (S15) (Quality). The complexity first lay in the fact that different elements of law sat in different places.

The Spirit Drink Regulations 2008 define what a spirit should be and it seems are more focused on the manufactured product as opposed to the adulterated product at local retail level. The old Food Labelling Regulations 1996 state what the legal tolerances are for spirits, which were transposed into EC 1169/2011 and now implemented by The Food Information Regulations 2014. The Food Safety Act 1990 has the offences for Nature or Quality or Substance which itself can be confusing. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading 2008 could be used for food offences. The Food Safety and Hygiene Regulation 2013 would be needed for the use of the EC178/2002

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

Far Left Jay Moran carrying out an inspection Right The Anton Parr DMA 35n Density Meter used

possible offences. The Fraud Act 2006 was a possibility; the Trade Marks Act 1994 could also apply and so on.

The PACE interviews took place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and so were conducted by a series of written interview letters which in themselves presented a number of issues for us, especially in relation to providing effective challenge questions.

The equipment used to test the spirit drinks by the officers was an Anton Parr DMA 35n Density Meter, which is very easy to carry around and can be quick to use. Alcohol can be drawn up into the device through the tube and a digital reading will be given on the screen. It is perhaps quicker and simpler to use than a traditional hydrometer kit but much

“This was the most extreme case of watering down I had ever encountered in my 15 or so years in the trading standards profession”

more expensive to buy. It can give an indicative result if used correctly to then be further confirmed by an official testing via an accredited laboratory, if criminal proceedings are to be considered. It is worth taking the time to learn how to use it and assess its strengths and limitations when testing alcoholic drinks.

This was a good example of joint working across trading standards and Environmental Health, with both officers keen to learn about each other’s roles.

Both professions have a lot to offer each other in terms of joined-up working and the sharing of skills and expertise. Going forward it may be likely that food safety officers’ roles are more and more likely to require a higher emphasis on food standards interventions, including the testing of spirit drinks – especially in light of the recently published new food law code of practice which appears to be changing the way food regulation is to be delivered. Only time will tell. n

About the author

Jay Moran is Senior Inspector at Cheshire West Trading Standards

| 23

Tobacco

By Andy Wright

a seemingly endless supply of people willing, for whatever reason, to provide their name fronting the business. Yes, given the resource we might have peeled away the veneer, but as we’re all aware our job isn’t solely about illegal cigarettes.

Clearly we were dealing with organised crime groups operating a number of individual premises and the tenant change was obviously part of the modus operandi. That doesn’t mean there weren’t successes – there certainly were – but none of that stemmed the tide.

A long-term solution to

ILLICIT TOBACCO? Putting a stop to businesses that sell illegal tobacco products can be achieved by taking a novel and innovative approach to prosecutions, says Andy Wright In Lincolnshire we have been lucky enough to receive specific funding to combat illegal tobacco. That funding comes nowhere near covering the actual cost, but it does mean that we have been able to conduct activities intended to reduce the sale of illegal tobacco for some years.

Lincolnshire has an extensive history of counterfeit clothing centred on tourist hotspots along the east coast. Even so, illegal tobacco has now far outweighed counterfeit clothing as the main focus of criminal investigation for my officers.

Despite the reduction in supply of illegal cigarettes reported by HMRC, over the past 10 years on the ground we have seen a many-fold increase in the number of retail premises selling illegal cigarettes. Many premises use such cigarettes as their primary source of income; most do not sell any form of legitimate cigarettes or tobacco; food items on shelves tend to be sparse with long (or expired) durability dates; stored stock is non-existent; most have long since lost their licence to sell alcohol; and

24 |

there are usually large numbers of other premises selling similar, if not identical, products within a very short distance.

These are not viable food businesses; they are in fact outlets for illegal cigarettes that use food as a paper-thin façade to hide their primary purpose.

Worryingly, despite the resource given, prosecution seemingly had little effect on the number of premises selling illegal cigarettes. In fact illegal cigarettes were still being sold from exactly the same establishments as they were 10 years before. In one instance eight separate defendants from the same premises had been prosecuted, but still illegal product was freely available from the same outlet.

In effect the only thing that changed following each prosecution was that on paper the person responsible for the tenancy changed. Despite the extensive premises history when a case got to court, few defendants were anything other than first-time offenders.

To a lesser extent a similar situation was apparent in no less than 48 similar premises across Lincolnshire. There was

A change of approach Mr Viscomi owns a property in the centre of Lincoln. Between 2010 and 2018 he rented out that property for use as a business. Beyond that he had nothing to do with the business operating from his premises and was simply a landlord. As you might have guessed, this property was one with a history of selling illegal cigarettes under a number of different tenants.

In 2015 I had a meeting with Viscomi.

During the meeting I outlined what had been happening at his premises and the potential pitfalls for him under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA). I formalised details of the meeting in writing, putting him on notice that premises under his ultimate control were being used for criminal conduct, and that the rental he was currently receiving on those premises could be presumed to have come in whole or in part from the proceeds of crime.

Following each subsequent seizure or test purchase I wrote again to Viscomi outlining what had happened at his premises. Throughout he maintained that all he was doing was renting out the property and what happened there was nothing to do with him.

In 2018 we commenced proceedings against Viscomi. He pleaded guilty to offences under section 328 of the Proceeds of Crime Act. He was 66 years of age, of previous good character and was given full credit for his early guilty plea. Despite this he received an eightmonth sentence (suspended for 18 months), 240 hours community service, full costs against him, and a Proceeds of

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“The letters clearly put the landlord on notice regarding the criminal offences they may commit by failing to act” Left, below & far left Illicit tobacco products concealed in premises across Lincolnshire

The benefits of bringing a prosecution via the POCA ▪ The starting point for sentencing

is a custodial sentence

▪ The offence is a criminal lifestyle

offence for the purposes of POCA ▪ A landlord will ALWAYS have POCA assets, i.e. the property they lets out ▪ Whilst tenants may easily change following enforcement action, the landlord remains constant Crime Confiscation Order was made out for £56,000 in respect of the rent he had received using the six-year assumption.

As Judge Watson told Viscomi in his summing up, “You knew of the criminal activity taking place at your premises because trading standards told you, yet you chose to do nothing” The Viscomi case was essentially practical precedent that I later streamlined and implemented into Operation Aladdin.

Wish come true At the beginning of 2020 I started Operation Aladdin. To date I have written to landlords of 32 premises informing them that their premises are being used for the retail of illicit cigarettes. The letters clearly put the landlord on notice regarding the criminal offences they themselves may commit by failing to act.

I now have standard letters that I use to speed up the process.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

I then write to a landlord each further time I have evidence I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt their premises is being used to supply illegal cigarettes. Broadly, the more times an individual landlord is written to, and the longer the offending takes place with their knowledge, the stronger the evidence becomes.

To date 19 separate premises have successfully evicted offending tenants. I have confirmation that eviction proceedings have been formally commenced in respect of a further two premises. Most importantly there has been no further offending whatsoever from any of the premises.

Where now?

The long-term success has been such that Lincolnshire TS does not do anything on illicit cigarettes without prioritising on the basis of the evidential requirements of Op Aladdin. I’m looking to include Op Aladdin principles in other areas of TS

work. Although it has to be said these areas do not have the same persistent nature (and therefore the unique problem) as illicit cigarette retail and do not therefore provide the best fit.

Police are looking to use Op Aladdin principles in respect of cannabis growers in domestic rented properties. There is a higher than expected incidence of such properties being linked to the same landlords or letting agents, indicating this is not likely to be a chance occurrence.

I wait with interest to see what the recent HMRC consultation on sanctions to tackle tobacco duty evasion brings. The proposals are interesting, and welcome.

Although I suspect enforcement will not be without its practical difficulties, which may still leave room for Op Aladdin.

Unfortunately I’ve only been able to provide an overview in this article; through necessity much of the detail has been left out. I am happy to provide further information should anyone have an interest, and can be contacted via the email below. n

About the author

Andy Wright is Principal Trading Standards Officer at Lincolnshire Trading Standards. andy.wright@lincolnshire.gov.uk

| 25

Public engagement

By Richard Young

Community service Two projects in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets demonstrate the results that can be achieved through positive engagement between trading standards and the local community According to the most recently available Census data, more than two thirds of the residents of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets belong to minority ethnic groups and the district is home to the largest Bangladeshi community in England. By working with residents to curb unscrupulous business practices which inflict harm within their community, Tower Hamlets Trading Standards has built up trust over many years – and seen a string of successful outcomes.

One initiative, the Hajj Advice & Enforcement Project, stems from a notorious case in which members of the Muslim community were defrauded by a conman selling Hajj pilgrimage packages.

When the actions of Faruk Ahmed were brought to trading standards’ attention in 2008, says Nazir Ali, Senior Trading Standards Officer for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, “we had a kind of epidemic of providers of Hajj travel packages. In total, around 60 of these providers existed in Tower Hamlets.”

But Ahmed’s company, Qibla Hajj Kafela, stood out. “The initial trigger was that the price was lower than his competitors – that’s always one of the things to look out for. Also, he just had a small office above a newsagent. There were various travel agents based in in the actual complex, but this one was just a desk,” says Ali. “He was taking money without being Ministry of Housing or CAA approved. He was taking hundreds of group bookings; a

26 |

package would cost up to £2,000, so that amounted to a lot of money.”

Ahmed was charging his clients for air tickets, accommodation and transport between various pilgrimage sites – money which, it would later emerge, he was using to fund his gambling habit. “Around a million pounds had already gone into his company without having any approvals or protection in place,” says Ali. “We had a few complaints coming in from other agents who were licensed, saying to keep an eye on him.”

Ahmed was contacted by trading standards, who warned him not to take any further bookings until he had a license to trade and protection for his customers’ deposits in place. But, says Ali, “while this was going on, with the Hajj period fast approaching, he realised that he wasn’t in a position to deliver all the things that he promised and one day he just left with the money. We were alerted by some of his clients that he was no longer at the premises.”

Justice served The investigation launched by Tower Hamlets Trading Standards – which included gathering numerous witness statements and swathes of evidence – formed the backbone of the prosecution against Ahmed when he was arrested upon returning from Bangladesh to the UK. In 2009 he was sentenced to six years in jail. In total he had stolen £570,000 from his victims, many of whom had put their life savings into the pilgrimage.

More recently, in 2016, following a Tower Hamlets Trading Standards investigation Al Kabir Travel and Tours Ltd was found guilty of taking 120 pilgrims to Hajj without any ATOL protection insurance and fined more than £12,000.

“The Ahmed case triggered the work that happened afterwards, with education and enforcement – a two-pronged approach,” says Ali. For the past 10 years in the run-up to Hajj – which begins on July 17 this year – Ali and his team have gone out into the community to raise awareness of the potential issues around Hajj pilgrimage package sellers. “We educate all the potential pilgrims, we advertise the information that they should be checking for on our website, in the local press, and then do mobile visits to mosques,” he says. “We select the biggest mosques as well as different areas within Tower Hamlets. Over time this has led to a massive reduction in the number of complaints – and victims.”

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

Left The Tower Hamlets Trading Standards team distribute leaflets at a mosque

In addition to travel packages, the team also raises awareness of the risks of transmissible diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Curbing the spread of MERS has obvious parallels with preventing the spread of COVID-19, which has inevitably disrupted both community engagement projects and the Hajj pilgrimage itself over the past year.

Stubbing it out Illicit tobacco is another area in which Tower Hamlets has achieved positive results by combining trading standards enforcement with public health protection. As part of a three-year Service Level Agreement (SLA) between Public Health England, Environmental Health and Tower Hamlets Trading Standards, Operation Stromboli aims to disrupt the sale of counterfeit, incorrectly labelled and non-duty paid tobacco and alcohol using trained sniffer dogs from BWY Canine and Wagtail UK Ltd. Within two years of Operation Stromboli coming into effect, business

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

compliance had improved and 206 underage sales test purchases had been carried out – with the subsequent prosecution of offending sellers and business owners. In addition, £22,000 in illegal tobacco products had been seized.

However, the success of the project has not guaranteed its survival. “The funding through the SLA has allowed us to do Operation Stromboli,” says Ali. “The partnership is working really well but the funding is possibly coming to an end because of cuts. The vision for Public Health England is to have zero smokers by 2050, which as a country we may not meet if we have these budget cuts.”

Ali sees both Operation Stromboli and

“We’re not all about just enforcing, trying to kill the little fish; there are benefits once we help these small businesses”

the Hajj Advice & Enforcement Project as part of a bigger, ongoing effort to foster productive and mutually supportive relationships with businesses in Tower Hamlets – particularly ethnic minority businesses (EMBs). “It’s very important for us to have a relationship with these small businesses, especially the BAME [Black, Asian and minority ethnic] ones,” he says. “A lot of them have the passion to do something for themselves but at the same time, they don’t have the knowledge or the skillsets to fulfil all their legal obligations.

“We’re not all about just enforcing, trying to kill the little fish; there are benefits once we help these small businesses,” Ali observes. “There’s a ripple effect and they will pass on some of the benefits to the consumers.

It doesn’t have to be just financial benefits or product benefits. They can also educate their consumers. It’s like having a golden thread from enforcement, through small businesses, all the way to consumer education.” n

| 27

Parking fraud

By Richard Young

Taken for a ride An investigation into a fraudster who took money for secure parking services then left customers’ vehicles in a muddy field proves the value of persistence When people jet off on holiday and entrust their cars to long-stay parking services, they are entitled to expect that their vehicles will not only remain in one place, but be left safe and secure.

But when holidaymakers departing from Heathrow Airport entrusted their vehicles to the care of Muhammad Tahir Zaman and his company Connect Parking Ltd, little did they know that they would be left in public pay-and-display car parks, behind an adult entertainment club and in a muddy field.

Zaman’s actions came to light in April 2017 when the London Borough of Hillingdon Trading Standards Service was notified of two council car parks full of vehicles without ‘pay and display’ parking tickets. In total 101 cars had been left in the car parks over the Easter weekend.

When Council Car Park Manager Chris

28 |

Barton went to the sites to investigate, he observed a man arriving to put tickets on all of the cars – Barton told him that the vehicles could not be left in public car parks and instructed him to have them removed.

At this point Hillingdon Trading Standards stepped in and became involved in what would become a year-long, multi-agency investigation, codenamed Operation Buzzard.

Buzzard takes off “We obtained the vehicle registrations for all 101 cars from Parking Services,” says Hillingdon Council Trading Standards Officer Kiran Seyan. “We then made enquiries with DVLA for vehicle ownership so that we could write to the owners. This process took time as ordinarily we can obtain vehicle owners’

details in approximately 24 hours via online request when it is them that has committed an offence. In this situation, the vehicle owners were the victims of an offence so we had to manually fill in forms for all vehicles to make the request.”

The owners of the vehicles were contacted by the Hillingdon Trading Standards team, who supplied questionnaires which could be used to gather statements. It emerged that the vehicle owners had left their cars with airport parking service Connect Parking.

In addition to the 101 vehicles left in the public car parks, Hillingdon Trading Standards had received further complaints from customers, including one who had a tracking device fitted on his car. This showed that the vehicle had been left in a public street for most of the time he was paying for the company’s services, where it had sustained two punctures and been scratched along one side.

Another customer noticed that his previously full fuel tank had been drained when he went to collect his car, and estimated that the vehicle had travelled about 330 miles while in Connect Parking’s possession.

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

Expectations vs reality When Connect Parking first came to the attention of Seyan and her colleague Martin King, they examined the company’s website, which promised customers that their vehicles would be ‘whisked away to our secured car park’.

When interviewed, company owner Zaman stated that all of the website’s wording and terms and conditions had been written by an associate, and he had not made any efforts to ensure it was compliant with legislation.

As Seyan observes, “The reality of their facilities was that their main parking site was on the grounds of an adult entertainment nightclub venue car park.

Zaman stated it was protected by the CCTV cameras installed for the nightclub at the front of the compound and the door supervisors were acting as security for the cars.”

When Seyan and King visited the site however, they were able to drive onto the site without any security stops.

“In late 2017, it came to our attention that the company had begun using another site to park their vehicles,” says Seyan. “This was at a field located on green belt land in Iver. When we visited the site we found approximately 150 vehicles parked. The site was open to drive into and out of, with no security systems in place and no one present at the time of our visit.

“Statements obtained from the customers detailed what they thought they were getting versus what occurred.

All customers stated they had thought they would be getting secure parking

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

“The reality of their facilities was that their main parking site was on the grounds of an adult entertainment nightclub venue car park” for their vehicles and had they known otherwise, they would not have booked with the company. This was important to demonstrate the consumer detriment and transactional decisions made.”

Bringing the prosecution During the course of their investigation, Seyan and King realised that the scale of Connect Parking’s deception would require them to gather statements from hundreds of consumers, so they applied for assistance from the Tri-Regional Investigation Team (TRIT), an initiative backed by National Trading Standards.

Andrew Henderson from TRIT’s Londonbased team joined the case and worked to obtain statements from as many members of the public as possible. They were also assisted by the police and Buckinghamshire Council’s planning department, who were themselves investigating the use of the green belt site the company was using.

Once the team had gathered enough evidence, a prosecution was brought against Zaman and Connect Parking under the Fraud Act 2006 and the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading

Regulations 2008. As Seyan points out, “Having taken the decision to park customers’ cars in a public car park, the company failed to inform the customers at the point of collection of their intention to park them there.

“The challenges we faced in this investigation were mainly to do with obtaining statements to demonstrate the fraudulent promises made by the company regarding their parking, leading to consumer detriment,” Seyan adds.

“People often back out of providing statements even though they may initially consent to do so.” Her advice to other officers who may find themselves investigating a similar case? “I would suggest you act as fast as possible to get this done!”

Another challenge stemmed from the fact that the car owners did not live locally. “None were based in our actual borough,” says Seyan. “We had vehicle owners from all over the UK who had contracted with the company. Of the 101 who were written to, 80 responded to the questionnaires. From these we selected around 20 to obtain statements from – in the end, we only got 10 signed statements from vehicle owners. The other two complainants who had approached us both provided statements.”

Despite the challenges though, the investigation ultimately proved successful. In sentencing at Isleworth Crown Court on April 9, 2021, Zaman was jailed for eight months for three offences of fraud by false representation and three breaches of consumer protection law. He had pleaded guilty to all six offences at an earlier hearing. He was also disqualified from being a company director for four years.

According to Cllr John Riley, Hillingdon Council’s Cabinet Member for Public Safety and Transport, “[Zaman] abused his customers’ trust in the most brazen way, while making a great deal of money, and so it’s only right he should face the full force of the law.” n

| 29

Illicit puppy trade

By Richard Young

B E WA R E O F T H E

DOG DEALERS

30 |

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

PICTURES OF CUTE PUPPIES FOR SALE ON SOCIAL MEDIA OFTEN CONCEAL A DARKER REALITY OF ANIMAL CRUELTY, EMOTIONAL EXPLOITATION AND SERIOUS ORGANISED CRIME

“This isn’t just about finance and consumer detriment. This goes deeper,” says CTSI Lead Officer for Animal Health & Agriculture Stephanie Young when I ask her why the illicit puppy trade is such a serious problem. “It’s about compromised animal welfare and the emotional aspect that people get tied into when they buy a puppy.”

Among the many unexpected consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the surge in sales of puppies, predominantly via social media and online marketplaces. While many of these dogs are supplied by responsible, licensed breeders who prioritise the health and wellbeing of the animals in their care, there has also been an uptick in the activities of a more cynical type of trader.

“Over the past year, we have received over 300 reports about this across our intelligence database,” says Diane Bryson, Strategic Intelligence Analyst at Trading Standards Scotland (TSS). “The illicit puppy trade and animal welfare are the most documented complaint, with the majority referring to puppies which have been purchased by consumers and have subsequently fallen ill, or they relate to suspicions that the pup has been bred on a puppy farm.

“The current demand for dogs is outstripping the legitimate supply. This has been exacerbated even more by COVID-19. The marketplace has become infiltrated with intensive breeding establishments, illegal importation and unlicensed and undisclosed businesses.”

The problem is by no means restricted to Scotland. According to Young, “I’d go

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

as far to say it’s a problem across Europe.

People who are not licensed breeders are selling dogs, and a lot of imports are coming in from Europe and being placed on the market for sale here.”

Last April the Government introduced ‘Lucy’s Law’ in England. Named after a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who was rescued from a puppy farm where she was subjected to appalling conditions, the legislation requires anyone purchasing a puppy to buy from a registered breeder or adopt from a rescue centre. If a trader sells puppies or kittens without a licence, they could receive an unlimited fine or be sent to prison for up to six months. The law will also come into effect in Scotland and Wales in September, and is ‘on track’ to be introduced in Northern Ireland.

The tighter rules and increased sentencing are a step in the right direction but, true to form, criminals have paid little heed.

“With puppy breeding and pet shop sales, the mum has to be with the pups when they are being sold.” Young says.

“But one of the things that we’re seeing now is dummy bitches being put with these puppies, when actually that bitch isn’t the mum to those pups.

“The marketplace has become infiltrated with intensive breeding establishments, illegal importation and unlicensed and undisclosed businesses”

“This also gives cause for concern with regards to the rise thefts of puppies or dogs that we’ve seen across the UK in recent months. What are these dogs being used for? Are some of these bitches being bred from, or are they being used to make it look like they’re the mums to some of these pups which are coming in from puppy farms abroad?”

Career criminals In many cases, the trade is part of wider criminal activity of the most serious kind. “As with other types of illegal trading, there is a link between the illicit trade in puppies and serious organised crime, which includes things like illegal drugs, money laundering and tax avoidance,” says Bryson.

“This is international organised crime, and the penalties are not the highest for the crimes that are being committed,” says Young. “It’s a high-value product that’s being brought in and placed on the market with a very low-value penalty. The only way you can really stop some of this is either to look at the way the offences are drafted, or to place more responsibility on the individuals who are fuelling this demand – to say stop and think. There’s got to be responsibility put on them in relation to where they’re obtaining these dogs from.”

Mike Flynn, Chief Superintendent at the Scottish SPCA, agrees that despite Lucy’s Law, many of the sentences handed out are not tough enough. “If you’re caught coming into the UK with £20,000 worth of drugs, you are going to go to jail. If you come in with £20,000

| 31

Illicit puppy trade

By Richard Young

worth of pups, which is the exact same profit, you might get a £500 fine because you’ve ‘saved them from some horrible place in Ireland’.”

Flynn also agrees that consumers themselves have a responsibility to prevent the illicit puppy trade. “People really have to be aware and just stop the impulse buying. A little bit of homework could have helped some people avoid being caught out.

“It’s all down to the public’s lack of willingness to spend time finding a reputable breeder and being stupid enough to hand over £2,000 to somebody in a car park when all they’ve got is a mobile number. A lot of the people we’re dealing with are using burner phones, and maybe sell three or four litters through numbers that you’ll never trace.

“In March we seized about 20 pups from five different premises in Glasgow, where certain people from Ireland were renting properties and inviting people to come and buy pups. You go three days later, and they’re gone.”

Putting a price on suffering Many of the puppies which are either bred in the UK or brought in from overseas by criminals suffer from health problems which severely affect their quality of life and lead to financial and emotional detriment for their owners.

“In one incident, there was a Cocker Spaniel that had been advertised online for £450,” says Bryson. “The pup was purchased by the consumer but became unwell shortly after. It was confirmed by the vet that the pup was suffering from canine parvovirus and it died shortly afterwards. The consumer ended up with bills of over £1,800.

“Further intelligence showed that several other pups that had been sold on social media by the same dealer became ill with parvovirus, and on one other occasion the pup had died. This is a pattern we are seeing at the moment.”

“One of the worst cases I’ve seen personally was a woman who paid £2,500 for an English Bulldog,” says Flynn.

“Within five weeks she’d spent £4,500 in

32 |

vet’s fees, and the last payment was to have the dog put to sleep because it just couldn’t be helped. When she contacted us, she said her son will never want another dog – he had fallen in love with this one and just watched her die.

“The last figures I got showed a 157% increase in people complaining to us about welfare issues,” he adds. “[The puppies have] all got welfare problems and those can be physical, and immediately apparent, or they can be psychologically damaged. That’s when you get a lot of problems after three to six months.”

Puppy farms present an animal welfare threat that reaches far beyond the dogs they produce, says Young. “In relation to animals coming in from abroad, there’s also a rabies risk; those animals are not being correctly vaccinated and haven’t had the anti-rabies vaccination.

That exposes the country to a disease risk.

You cannot put a price on the country coming down with rabies, you can’t put a price on animal welfare, and you can’t put a price on the emotional impact on individuals. Anybody who’s had a dog or pet knows that it becomes a member of the family.

“People will pay a couple of thousand pounds for a puppy potentially and on top of that, they might have to pay thousands more in veterinary fees, because that animal suddenly becomes sick. And that animal may never actually be right. Its health has been compromised because of the way that it’s been either transported into the UK, or the way that it’s been bred.”

“This also gives cause for concern with regards to the rise in thefts of puppies or dogs that we’ve seen across the UK in recent months. What are these dogs being used for?”

Joined-up enforcement The scale of the problem requires a multi-faceted approach, with different organisations – including trading standards – joining forces.

“The SSPCA has been working heavily to combat the illegal puppy trade through Operation Delphin for the past five years,” says Flynn. “This involves ourselves, HMRC, Police Scotland, TSS and the Irish SPCA. Traditionally, our biggest problem was pups coming in from Ireland and Northern Ireland. That did drop at the beginning of COVID, but it’s started to come back again. There’s also been an increase in the amount of pups and adult dogs coming in from Spain and Cyprus, and particularly recently from Romania.”

“Being able to approach this problem from a different angle provides an opportunity for TSS to work alongside key partners like the SSPCA, local authorities and Police Scotland to tackle the perpetrators,” says Bryson. “We can do that through consumer education as well as enforcement action, and also through a coalition of intelligence.”

David MacKenzie, CTSI Lead Officer for E-Commerce, sees the illicit puppy

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“If you’re caught coming into the UK with £20,000 worth of drugs, you are going to go to jail. If you come in with £20,000 pounds worth of pups, you might get a £500 fine”

trade as part of a wider problem facing trading standards in the digital age (see cover story, page 16). “Platforms which introduce the buyer and seller to each other but don’t actually enable the purchase to be made, present the opportunity to further this particular trade,” he says.

“A key thing right across e-commerce is that we absolutely do need cooperation from the platforms. We’re talking about mega firms based in California, but we’re also talking about businesses based in the UK, where there are web operations that can enable legitimate sales of puppies to happen. But they’ve got to be making the right checks on the sellers.

We would certainly urge them to make those checks and prohibit anybody who’s dodgy in any way.

“For some of the smaller-scale cases, it may be appropriate to simply disrupt.

All of these platforms have forms where you can report illegal activity. I don’t see any problem with trading standards using them in the same way that a member of public could use them. I think we need to be versatile and we need to be creative in the way we deal with this.”

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

Public support Part of the reason the illicit puppy trade is so difficult to stamp out is that the animals being sold aren’t mere commodities. When a potential buyer sees a helpless puppy being held in the most dire conditions, they may well feel a responsibility to take it out of that situation in the misguided belief that they are ‘rescuing’ it – and most likely handing over a significant amount of money in the process.

That only exacerbates the problem though, as Flynn observes. “It’s a story we’ve heard many times,” he says. “One guy told me that the place the dog was being kept was absolutely stinking and he couldn’t leave it there, so he handed over the money. Obviously the pup became sick. But surprisingly, he couldn’t even give us the registration of the seller’s vehicle. It just beggars belief.

“People aren’t helping the situation by buying these pups; what they should be doing is reporting their concerns so we can try and do something about it.”

While puppies themselves may not be standard commodities, when it comes to taking the criminals to task, the

tools available to trading standards are essentially the same as for any other form of illicit trading.

“There are many aspects of this that are covered by the Consumer Protection Regulations in the same way any other goods and services are,” says Bryson.

“Misrepresentation is a key area; we have seen pups being advertised for sale online as home-bred, only for the customers to later determine that the pup may have a foreign microchip or develop diseases synonymous with puppy farms, like parvovirus.

“There are also puppies which have been advertised for sale online by breeders who falsely claimed to be Kennel Club registered, or sellers failing to inform consumers that they are actually traders rather than a private seller.

“The TSS team has worked on a case in which the individuals involved were bringing large numbers of dogs from Ireland and selling them within Scotland.

The subjects made misleading statements, claiming the dogs were bred by them personally within Scotland. There has also been misrepresentation by the sellers about the breed of the dog – consumers were being misled into thinking they were buying one breed and ending up with another breed completely.”

“The offences that we have across the UK are exactly the same with regards to misleading the consumer,” says Young.

“We’ve got fraudulent activity in the way that some of these animals have been sold; quite often there’s fraudulent documentation with regards to the certificates or pedigree certificates.

“There’s a whole host of activity that sits behind this but the key thing is that it’s driven by supply and demand.” n

| 33

Research

By Giles Speid

Who are you?

A comprehensive survey of the trading standards profession will give a clear picture of the obstacles we must overcome, says Giles Speid I remember attending a concert by the seminal rock band The Who whilst working at Wembley Arena, investigating counterfeit merchandise. While the band blasted out their pivotal song Who Are You? to 10,000 fans, I remember asking it of myself: Who am I? The answer now is different from what it was then.

This is why every 10 years, the UK Government asks the question by way of the National Census. Who are you? How old are you? Where do you live, and how would you describe yourself?

The Census is crucial for planning essential public services such as schools, housing, hospitals and roads. It is a powerful way of assessing the changing shape of our society.

CTSI is carrying out an equally important, comprehensive survey of our profession. With the arrival of our new CEO John Herriman, Board members and an inclusive Race & Equalities Working

34 |

Group, it is the right time to discover and update our records of who is in the profession.

In what industries do trading standards professionals work? How diverse is the profession, and what are their experiences? How can we make it more reflective and collaborative?

CTSI will be looking at the precarious status of qualifications, the average age of professionals, and the pipeline of future TS Officers. We will learn about the hurdles people face and listen to any suggestions for how to overcome them.

“CTSI will analyse the data to design a profession more fitting and reflective of the 21st century”

CTSI will analyse the data to design a profession more fitting and reflective of the 21st century. The members’ answers and experiences will help set the agenda and lead change in the profession.

Like any good Census, we need to know where the care for the profession is most needed so that we can target the aid in that area. All answers are anonymous, and no names or CTSI reference numbers are required.

It is open to all trading standards professionals, including non-members, so it is essential that the questions are answered honestly and frankly, and that lived experiences are shared. So, whilst you are filling out the survey, just think of The Who’s song, or better still, play it and ask yourself: Who are you? n

About the author

Giles Speid is Trading Standards Team Manager, North West Westminster To complete the survey, visit www.tradingstandards.uk/ diversitysurvey

Summer 2021

"We are open for business" We are extending our funding to those wishing to apply for grants in support of: • encouraging recruitment into the profession • trainee and officer competency and personal development • helping the profession to deliver positive outcomes which show its relevance to corporate agendas and central government policy

We rely on your support by way of donations to enable these initiatives.

Spread the word...

If you are interested please contact us at: college@tsi.org.uk

Celebrating 10 Years Protecting Rights Holders Product Authentication

Test Purchases

Intelligence Management

&

Enforcement Support

Training via WRi Academy

02921 202597

linkedin.com/company/wri

enquiries@wri-group.com

www.wri-group.com

Think Piece

Lead Officers: the cornerstone of CTSI policy Laura Kane CTSI Policy Executive

CTSI relies on its network of Lead Officers for their invaluable expertise – and the whole profession benefits as a result The Policy Team has been recently taking a close look at the Lead Officer Framework and thinking of ways to improve it, in terms of CTSI support and engagement with Lead Officers and enhancing communication across the network. We have also been thinking of how we can future-proof the network and keep hold of the incredible knowledge and expertise already built up.

CTSI Lead Officers really sit at the cornerstone of CTSI policymaking, bringing to our attention upcoming changes to legislation and decisions by government that could affect how trading standards delivers its functions.

Sometimes these proposed changes weigh heavily on the already diminished

36 |

resources available at local authority level for trading standards, or a practical point may have been missed, meaning that there could be a great difficulty in the application and enforcement of the proposed change. Sometimes the changes seek to remove trading standards involvement in an area which has been a longstanding ‘bread and butter’ area for the profession.

It is therefore imperative that we have our Lead Officers with their practical, dayto-day knowledge of the subject area to guide us in these conversations. I recently had an in-depth discussion with three of our Lead Officers on a single point of law which is now potentially problematic with the massive surge in online sales. As the

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

▪ EU Exit: input into the CTSI

Think Tank and Report from E-Commerce, Metrology, Fair Trading, Civil Law, Product Safety, Travel, Intellectual Property, Food and Cross Border portfolios.

▪ COVID-19: input to create clarity for the profession on travel law issues and price gouging from the fair trading, civil law and travel portfolios.

▪ Health portfolio: consultation response on new government sanctions to tackle tobacco duty evasion.

▪ Food and Nutrition portfolio: consultation response on the enforcement of new government restrictions on promotions of products high in fat, sugar and salt.

▪ Product Safety and E-Commerce portfolios: input into OPSS UK Product Safety Review.

▪ Animal Health and Welfare portfolio: input into Inquiry – moving animals across borders.

It is imperative that we have our Lead Officers with their practical, day-today knowledge to guide us in these conversations trading environment changes, so does the need to have laser-focused vision on where potential loopholes or gaps lie. It is also important that we have evidencebased reasoning to fight our corner when needed, and a forward look at what may be coming down the line.

Broad expertise Over the past year, Lead Officers have helped immensely across a diverse range of topics to enable CTSI to present its position within important government dialogues. Whilst not an exhaustive list, and different portfolio areas will pop up as needed depending on what is going on in the consumer landscape, I highlight some examples below:

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

CTSI Lead Officers are also an immense help with CTSI media output, providing expert quotes for press releases or even appearing on National TV and Radio shows. Most recently we had CTSI representation on multiple episodes of Rip-Off Britain in relation to fair trading issues. There have also been multiple appearances on BBC radio shows in relation so scams. A lot of our press output on scams is driven by Lead Officers alerting us to new scams as they emerge.

Mutual benefits The CTSI Lead Officer role provides an opportunity to contribute to and develop an ongoing specialism in an area of interest with positive benefits for personal and professional development.

It is an instrumental role which raises an individual’s profile within the profession, providing an opportunity to sit on central/ local government, business and consumer committees, forums and working groups and influence local, national and international government agendas. Public affairs skills can be developed in drafting briefing/strategy papers on specific

What’s new in the Lead Officer Network?

▪ A new Lead Officer Handbook ▪ A new area for Lead Officers on

the CTSI website for document templates and guidance ▪ A focused look at improving communication both within the Lead Officer Network and with CTSI ▪ A focused look at sustainability and getting people interested in joining the network. We are seeking expressions of interest in the following areas: ▪ Product Safety ▪ Age Restricted Sales

issues of interest and concern. Ultimately, Lead Officers make a difference to the profession as a whole.

CTSI Lead Officers also receive free annual registration to the CTSP scheme, which is focused on continuing professional development.

Not all Lead Officers are employed within a local authority, but for those who are, their employer can also benefit from the Lead Officer’s increased profile which can have positive ramifications both reputationally and for planning and prioritisation. Often, CTSI Lead Officers, being involved in various committees and working groups, are the first to know about important policy/legislative changes or opportunities that could be of benefit. Material developed by the Lead Officer can also be used by their employer, such as media output and consultation responses. Ultimately, the employer is seen as being committed to the development of their staff and contributing to the furtherance of CTSI and the profession as a whole. n If you would like more information on Lead Officers or have any feedback on the Lead Officer Network in general, please contact policy@tsi.org.uk

| 37

Home energy

By Richard Young

A GOOD USE OF

ENERGY

The mis-selling of energy efficiency products to consumers in Scotland led to a campaign targeting lead generators, spurious claims and exploitative lending When the Green Homes Grant scheme was announced for England and Wales last year, a variety of concerns emerged around rogue traders wading into the energy-efficiency sector to capitalise on the potentially huge sums up for grabs. The fact that the scheme has now been scrapped has not stopped disreputable parties from attempting to exploit consumers’ confusion around energy-efficiency funding and their good intentions to make their homes greener.

North of the border in Scotland, despite the fact that the Green Homes Grant did not apply even when it was in operation – the Scottish Government has announced its own separate 20year improvement programme, Energy Efficiency Scotland – traders using the service of lead generators on social media have sought to cash in.

According to Trading Standards Scotland (TSS), since 2015 more than 30% of the cases it has concluded have involved energy efficiency products – leading to a combined consumer detriment of more than £4.5m.

This is what spurred TSS to set up Project Maxwell, a three-pronged campaign involving intelligence gathering, prevention and awareness raising, to tackle problems in the energy-efficiency sector.

Recurring problem Diane Bryson, Strategic Intelligence Analyst at TSS, explains: “We’ve done quite a lot of investigations over the years

38 |

into the Green Deal energy sector, looking at problematic traders offering energyefficiency products and how they are sold and marketed.

“When the Chancellor announced his budget for Green Deal energy, even though that was only for England, we saw a massive surge in Scotland of promotions of windows and insulation doors. A lot of the adverts were actually being created by lead generators. They were harvesting the consumers’ data and then selling that information on to a whole host of different organisations, which in turn would start to bombard consumers with calls about energy-efficient windows and doors and things like that.”

At the outset of Project Maxwell, Bryson and her colleagues trawled the Facebook Ad Library in an effort to find the most prolific offenders. “You can search through that for energy products, or windows, which will bring up all adverts or social media pop-ups in relation to that product,” she says.

Of the 430 adverts investigated by TSS, it emerged that just eight lead-generator companies were behind 416 of them.

“These lead-generators would not obviously make it clear that they are taking the consumer’s data and selling it on,” says Bryson. “We made contact either with the home authorities of the traders or with the traders themselves and with Facebook, in order to either have the ads remedied or taken down.

“We also gave the traders business advice, informing them of their

responsibilities. That was the intelligence enforcement side of it. And then from that we produced a report about prevention.

We teamed up with Home Energy Scotland for a campaign of YouTube videos, a podcast, as well as a consumer survey to see what consumers had experienced themselves. We got quite good feedback on all of that.”

Nuisance calls A big part of the Project Maxwell campaign relied on information gathered by call-blocking company trueCall, which passed nuisance calling data on to TSS, who were then able to assess the scale of the problem and prioritise specific investigations. And while the mis-selling of energy efficiency products is a perennial concern across the whole of the UK, Bryson believes Scotland’s famously wet and windy weather makes

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

talked into allowing the company to take out a loan in their behalf.

“The way that is sold to them can be quite misleading. So it would seem that the consumer is possibly paying so much per week or so much per month for a new boiler, for example. This can span over a 10-year term. And in the end, the consumer has actually paid more for this boiler than whatever initially had been said. Sometimes the companies are registered with the FCA – sometimes they’re not. But they seem to be able to manipulate the consumer, and then when our team has gone through all of the contracts, it finally clicks with the consumer what has actually happened.”

its consumers particularly vulnerable to home energy scams. “We do a lot of analysis of the nuisance call data we get from trueCall,” she says. “And Scottish consumers at one point received nuisance calls in relation to Green Deal products more than in any other region.”

While in a handful of cases the work carried out on people’s homes did not come up to standard, the main aim of Project Maxwell was to disrupt the mis-

“People had signed up to terms without realising it or they found that they weren’t actually getting the free product they thought they were” www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

selling of energy-efficiency products.

As Bryson says, “In some cases the fitting of the boilers hadn’t been great.

Sometimes companies claimed they were gas registered when they weren’t, or they put logos on their websites they shouldn’t have done. And sometimes window fitting wasn’t up to standard.

“But there weren’t problems with the standard of work done on every occasion – it was more about the actual mis-selling of it. People had signed up to terms without realising it or they found that they weren’t actually getting the free product they thought they were.

“We found that quite a lot of the time once a consumer had put their details into an online form, maybe they’ve had a call back from a trader in relation to double glazing, for example. Then the trader would come out to the consumer’s home.

Then a lot of the time the consumer is

Ongoing project It is clear from the scale of the problem – and the persistence of the traders and lead generation companies themselves – that energy efficiency scams are likely to plague consumers in Scotland and beyond for some time to come. There have also been difficulties with bringing prosecutions, due in part to the lengthy nature of the legal process. “We have had a number of cases that have gone to the Procurator Fiscal in relation to this,” says Bryson. “But they sit in the system for such a long time. TSS have taken on quite a number of traders and has submitted criminal cases. Results-wise, we’re still waiting.”

That does not mean, however, that repeat offenders should rest easy – quite the contrary. “The energy sector is one of our priorities,” Bryson says.

“We’re actually going into phase two of Project Maxwell just now; we’ll be running the same campaign to see just how many cases of mis-selling we can find, and whether there have been any improvements or whether the same issues are coming up again with the same lead generators. It’s confusing for consumers and it’s clearly a big problem.” n

| 39

Tenant Fees Act

By Alison Farrar and Emma Cooke

On the home front

Two years on from the introduction of the Tenant Fees Act 2019, what impact has the legislation had on the lives of tenants? Alison Farrar and Emma Cooke investigate The Tenant Fees Act 2019 came into force in England on June 1, 2019 and brought with it a number of new challenges for trading standards. The legislation was intended to get rid of the fees charged to tenants before, during and after a tenancy, and to provide a framework to bring together Redress and Client Money Protection legislation.

The National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Team was formed when the existing team hosted by Powys County Council as Lead Enforcement Authority for The Estate Agents Act 1979 partnered up with Bristol City Council, who were appointed Lead Enforcement Authority for The Tenants Fees Act 2019.

Funding was provided for the new joint team to provide training to enforcement officers across England and to write guidance for the sector.

We identified early on that most trading standards officers didn’t often deal with tenancies and would normally have passed this type of complaint on to their colleagues in Housing or Environmental Health. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 (s83 to s88) covers the duty of letting agents to display fees, but many officers concentrated on the other sections in relation to goods, services, and investigatory powers. Housing and Environmental Health colleagues were already working on cases where tenants were complaining about the standard of their accommodation, failure to conduct repairs, and overcrowding.

40 |

Often these complaints led to harassment of the tenant and illegal evictions. Complaints soon started coming in from tenants who were being charged fees which were now prohibited under the new legislation.

The team started preparing an e-learning course as well as providing face to face training in each English region and invitations went out to all local authority officers. We asked our trading standards teams to reach out to their colleagues and encouraged them to make a start on collaborative projects and making plans to work together in the lettings sector. We created a Knowledge Hub group for enforcement officers to share best practice, ask questions and post links to interesting articles.

Knowledge gap We soon discovered that despite letting agencies being in the NTS top three priorities there was a lack of intelligence within the usual trading standards systems. The team prioritised this and approached several agencies to start sharing intelligence.

Officers may notice that trade association and Redress scheme expulsions are now disseminated and HMRC anti-money laundering supervision lists are shared with local authorities.

The Client Money Protection and Deposit Protection schemes now speak to us about emerging threats and current trends. The Redress schemes go one step further and

refer cases to us when they start to receive multiple complaints about an agent, which means that we can pass these cases on for investigation. We have also started working with police forces across the country on disruption of organised crime group (OCG) activity within rented properties.

In 2020 the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government offered funding to projects across England to improve lettings enforcement. The team has worked with each of these projects and is planning support for successful bidders for this year’s funding. This means that the team is able to assist local authorities in enforcing the Tenant Fees Act if the authority is unable to due to COVID-19 responsibilities as officers are being taken

“We have started working with police forces across the country on disruption of criminal activity within rented properties” Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“Tenants are in an extremely vulnerable position, and often they are too scared to make a complaint”

away from their normal day job. Some authorities have been unable to get their penalty policies approved as scrutiny committees have not met, and there have been other challenges such as working out powers within district councils.

Lingering problems The Tenant Fees Act has changed the way that landlords and letting agents make a profit. Previously a tenant was forced to pay for all the credit checks, referencing, check in and check out inventories, and often paid a huge deposit. The Tenant Fees Act brought in a list of permitted payments, applied some rules around those payments, and decreed that all other payments are prohibited.

Right from the start we were seeing agents testing the new legislation, finding new ways to keep charging tenants as much as possible. We are still seeing cases of agents charging for professional cleaning, adding their own admin costs onto the genuine cost of replacement keys, and trying to circumvent the fiveweek deposit cap by offering different options with less protection.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

It is now two years since the legislation came into force and many agencies are still charging students reduced summer rents despite the legislation stating that rent payments must be in equal instalments.

The Redress, Deposit Protection and Client Money Protection schemes all tell us they are receiving disputes over the return of deposits, where the agent or landlord claims that professional cleaning and chimney sweeping should come out of the deposit which the tenant is expecting to get back in full. Agents are refusing to provide a reference unless the tenant pays for it and are adding their loss of monthly fees to the amount a tenant must pay to surrender a tenancy early, even when a new tenant is found, and no loss has occurred.

We have heard some horror stories from tenants who have struggled to pay during the last few months. As evictions were not legally possible, some landlords and agents were resorting to other methods to recoup their lost rents.

Tenants have been forced to allow a new tenant to move in with them or use a spare room for cannabis farms or storage for OCG activity, and we have seen the start

of the first “sex for rent” prosecution.

All this reinforces our belief that tenants are in an extremely vulnerable position, and often they are too scared to make a complaint.

Our advice to trading standards colleagues is to treat these cases in the same way you would a loan shark or doorstep crime victim, and work with Social Services and the Local Safeguarding Board to protect the victim from further harm. Our colleagues in Environmental Health and Housing are experienced in dealing with people at risk of homelessness and those who feel threatened after making a complaint.

We’re finding that the collaborative approach to tenancy complaints works best. When professionals from trading standards, Environmental Health and Housing work together to tackle an issue, it’s amazing to see how easily we can have a positive impact. We all have different legislation to enforce and a variety of powers in our tookit, which can only be a good thing for the victims as well as the agents and landlords who benefit from robust enforcement and clear guidance. n

About the authors

Alison Farrar and Emma Cooke are CTSI Joint Lead Officers for Property and Lettings

| 41

42 |

In conversation with: Paul Scully MP

Journal of Trading Standards

I N C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H

PAUL SCULLY MP The Consumer Minister talks to the Journal of Trading Standards about what he sees as the pressing issues facing trading standards in modern Britain

BY RICHARD YOUNG

As the Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets, Paul Scully is responsible for ensuring that the UK’s consumer protection framework – of which trading standards forms a vital component – is effective, robust and prepared for the future. I spoke with him via Zoom about the long-planned ‘Modernising consumer markets’ white paper, the implications of EU Exit for UK food standards, and the thorny issue of cuts to trading standards funding.

Perhaps inevitably though, the conversation begins on COVID 19 – and the soaring number of scams that have targeted the public during the past year.

With more than £2.5bn lost to scammers since lockdown began, what is the Government doing to keep the public safe and bring perpetrators to justice?

“A number of organisations, including trading standards officers across the country, have done really good work on tackling this,” Scully says. “But so much of it is about continuing to raise awareness and making sure we can educate consumers. Events like Scams Awareness Fortnight [which runs from June 14-27 this year] help promote that.

“Last year, we had more MPs than ever getting involved. It is important to destigmatise victims as well – to allow people to feel confident to come forward, which then prevents there being further victims. The involvement of local trading standards is absolutely crucial in that campaign, as well as enforcement.”

As this issue’s cover story (see page

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

16) discusses, the rise in online scams is part of a wider shift in consumer behaviour and emerging technologies which create potential new sources of consumer detriment. What does Scully think are the most significant emerging threats – and what is his department doing about them?

“Markets are changing really rapidly all the time and there’s an absolutely clear move towards online selling,” he says.

“We need to look at consumer rights and what we might need to update to reflect this. We’ve been looking at things like subscription traps, for example, and online transactions in particular.

“We’ll continue to coordinate and work together with local authorities and consumer protection agencies like National Trading Standards (NTS) and the Consumer Protection Partnership to [recognise] the fact that consumer detriment cuts across organisational boundaries in this area. The more you push on with new technologies, the harder it is to actually pin down within one organisation – which is why we need to see how we can extend our collaborative working.”

Long time coming The Government’s ‘Modernising consumer markets’ white paper has been delayed by more than two years, and while little has been made public about its specific contents, it has the potential to radically shake up the way consumer protection is enforced in the UK. All

| 43

In conversation with: Paul Scully MP

Scully can say when asked about its likely publication date is: “We’re looking forward to publishing and we’ll do that shortly.

“We know that the economy thrives when strong, competitive markets function and deliver those benefits to consumers, giving them greater choice and lower prices,” he adds. “In our Manifesto, we talked about the fact that we wanted to give the CMA enhanced powers to tackle bad business practices, and we will launch that consultation soon.”

The white paper will, he continues, “concentrate on making sure we’ve got competitive markets, modernising the framework of consumer rights, tackling rip-offs, and making sure that consumers can actually get redress when things go wrong. I’m looking forward to getting that out to people to comment on as soon as possible. And we’ll welcome views from stakeholders, businesses and those within trading standards.”

Down to brass tacks Raising awareness and engaging with stakeholders is all well and good, but what about the essential resources needed to ensure that trading standards can function effectively? It is no secret that local authority funding has been slashed by £16bn over the past decade, and spending on trading standards services in England has plummeted by more than 50% between 2009 and 2019. How can this possibly be reconciled with the Government’s duty to keep the public safe?

Scully places the responsibility with local councils. “A lot of the funding that we give to local authorities is not ringfenced. Therefore you get a situation where you’ve got to have local priorities.

It’s important that we keep that up to local residents who the authorities are accountable to, because they’ve got to make those local choices.

“We’ve kept national funding the same in terms of NTS and Trading Standards Scotland, who have obviously got a role

44 |

We’ve got to make sure that local authorities realise the importance of trading standards… it is a local priority for councils to make those decisions

in tackling a lot of these issues. These national organisations have prevented over a billion pounds’ worth of consumer detriment since their creation.

“But at a local level we’ve got to make sure that local authorities realise the importance of trading standards. That does not mean to say that they can’t look at savings and how they might combine efforts or backroom offices. I used to be a Councillor, and I went out with my local trading standards team to see the work they did first-hand, and they do a great job. But it is a local priority for councils to make those decisions.”

Surely though, the diminishing pot of available resources forces local authorities to make almost impossible decisions about whether to prioritise things like social care and waste collection – pushing trading standards to the sidelines as a ‘luxury optional extra’?

“It’s not a luxury option, that’s for sure,” Scully says. “But, of course, everybody knows about their bins at the end of their drive or by their front gate, so that’s always a visible issue for councils.

And yes, adult social care is probably the biggest discretionary cost for most

councils up and down the country.

“But again, it’s about raising awareness because otherwise, there’s a risk of people only knowing about trading standards and about scams if they are the victim of one. And that’s why sometimes it drops in people’s minds, including Councillors who are taking those decisions. So the more we do about awareness, the more we show how these things hit the most vulnerable in our society, will help pitch it a little bit further up in those priorities at a local level.”

Trading standards has a very broad remit, from animal welfare to building safety – which in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy, is at the front of a lot of people’s minds. Is trading standards’ importance recognised within Government though?

“Absolutely,” Scully insists. “There’s so much that has happened just in the last year with COVID. We’ve talked about the fact that scammers have been far more prevalent within this period. We know that price inflation and price-gouging were an issue that was raised right at the beginning of the pandemic. All of those things are really at the forefront of the Government’s mind.

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

We’ve already got one of the strongest consumer protection regimes in the world and we absolutely remain committed to strong consumer rights “And then you get into the wider consumer protection issues, about refunds and package travel in particular, but also weddings and other hard-hit sectors. So it’s been something that really has been at the heart of my thinking as Consumer Minister. Every Government Minister is also a constituency MP. We’ve all had our post bags full of letters from people who have been raising consumer protection issues that trading standards officers, the wider Government and organisations like the CMA have leant into.”

After EU In addition to the challenges of COVID-19 and funding cuts, trading standards has also had to deal with the wave of new regulations and requirements on business that have been brought about by EU Exit.

This has also removed the UK from crossborder justice mechanisms such as the European Consumer Centre network and has terminated UK enforcers’ access to data sharing initiatives such as the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed. How is this compatible with the Government’s stated aim of maintaining high standards of consumer protection?

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

“We’ve already got one of the strongest consumer [protection] regimes in the world and we absolutely remain committed to the strong consumer rights and high standards that UK consumers have benefited from for many years,” Scully says.

“We want to make sure that we can continue and enhance global cooperation, and that obviously includes the EU but further afield as well, as we expand our trade deals across the world. We’ve committed to funding the UK International Consumer Centre – previously the UK European Consumer Centre – at least until the end of 2021 to make sure that consumers can resolve any cross-border disputes, making sure that they can feel confident and empowered in cross-border transactions. But we want to see what more we can do, and continue to talk with partners in the EU as well as others around the world.”

CTSI has expressed concerns over a possible trade deal with Australia and its potential to bring hormone-injected meat onto the UK market. I ask Scully what he can say to reassure consumers about the introduction of food which has been

produced to potentially lower standards?

“We’ve always been really strong in food standards and anything like that will need to come through Parliament to comment on and vote on,” he says. “We’re really keen not to weaken food standards.

Having left the EU means that we can actually have stronger food standards; for example with Danish bacon, some of the rules there are weaker than what we’ve got in the UK. “Before we will go off in any direction, the more controversial things like hormone-injected beef or the mooted chlorinated chicken from any potential American deal will have to be really carefully scrutinised because we do not want to be lowering food standards in this country.”

Personal priorities Finally, I ask Scully whether he has personally encountered any examples of trading standards’ work that have made him appreciate the service’s contribution to society.

“The daughter of one of my colleagues was in hospital, having swallowed some neodymium magnets,” he says. “There’s plenty more that we need to do to raise awareness of strong magnets that children might get hold of, and making sure that we strengthen our consumer protection around those kinds of everyday issues.

I’ve got two grown-up kids myself and they’ve safely got through 20-odd years, which is partly down to trading standards officers taking unsafe toys off the market.”

In closing, he adds: “I want to give my thanks to everybody in trading standards around the country, especially because they’ve tackled two huge asks over the last 18 months with the EU Exit transition and of course COVID, which trading standards has been right at the forefront of dealing with.

“We’re very appreciative of everything that they’ve done and I’m looking forward to building on consumer protection rights over the next year or two.” n

| 45

Cross-border trade

By Elisabetta Sciallis

NEW COUNTRY,

NEW CUSTOMS

Perhaps the most noticeable immediate effect of EU Exit for UK consumers is being felt when buying goods from abroad.

The UK ICC’s Elisabetta Sciallis looks at the major issues so far The new year brought the end of the EU Exit transition period and with it a number of structural changes for consumers making purchases crossborder. These include the new Customs and Excise rules that are now in place when buying goods from European Member States. On January 1 the UK left the EU and became a ‘third country’ – in other words, a country outside the EU economic structures, the Single Market and the Customs Union.

This means that the rules previously applying to goods imported from non-EU countries also now apply for incoming goods from the EU, albeit with some differences. From a consumer’s perspective, as soon as UK residents buy a product from an EU country, which will be shipped to the UK, consumers now become importers and are liable for Customs and Excise Duty as well as Value Added Tax (VAT) charges levied on the shipment.

EU businesses selling directly to UK consumers, and those online marketplaces that facilitate such transactions, have found themselves needing to register in the UK with HMRC. They have also become responsible for charging, reporting and accounting for UK VAT in certain circumstances.

These changes have presented UK

46 |

consumers and EU traders alike with a number of challenges, apparent inconsistencies and ultimately some unwelcome surprises as parties adjust to the new rules and processes.

Adjustment period The UK International Consumer Centre (UK ICC) has been busy supporting consumers as they navigate these issues.

We are seeing complaints particularly in relation to understanding who should collect the duties/VAT on consignments purchased by UK consumers from EU traders. This is in part due to the distinctions now being made between consignments of goods valued at £135 or less (excluding shipping and insurance, ‘unless they are included in the price and not separately shown on the invoice’) and those over £135.

Whilst the rules regarding payment for consignments of goods above £135 are the same as the existing rules for import from non-EU countries where import VAT is due at the border, and typically payable to the courier on delivery, the purchase for consignments of goods of £135 or below is covered by new rules. These rules have been introduced to avoid charging import VAT at the border and thereby reduce ‘friction’ for the shipping of low-value high-frequency goods from the EU.

In these circumstances ‘supply VAT’ is now due which should be collected at the point of sale by the EU trader, who then passes this on to UK HMRC. The rules also contain exclusions in the case of consignments of goods containing excise goods (i.e. alcohol, tobacco) or noncommercial goods (for example, gifts relief – unless over £39) where specific rules apply.

Among the complaints the UK ICC has received due to these new rules, unexpected charges are the most common. It may be that the consumer was simply unaware that a consignment valued above £135 would now attract extra charges payable to the courier prior to delivery (potentially including VAT, customs duties and courier handling fees). However, we have also seen more complex issues, related to double VAT for example. Here we have been contacted by consumers who had ordered goods online before the end of the EU Exit transition period (so VAT was collected at point of sale on behalf of the appropriate EU Member State), but their consignments

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“These changes have presented UK consumers and EU traders alike with challenges, apparent inconsistencies and some unwelcome surprises”

were delayed until the new year when the new rules apply, thereby attracting unexpected new charges (import VAT due to HMRC charged by courier on delivery).

We have also seen VAT double charging due to mistakes in custom declarations or errors by other parties.

Further, consumers have experienced difficulties in exercising their right to return goods for a full refund.In some cases, consumers have found themselves responsible for requesting a refund of VAT directly from HMRC, separately to the refund of the purchase price due from the EU trader. In those cases where a refund of VAT is due from HMRC, it must be obtained via courier specific forms, some of which are complex. We have also had experiences of traders refusing refunds due to complexities over VAT, including extra VAT charges arising from incorrect returns procedures. Whilst these issues are undoubtedly part of an evolving process, they are complex, time consuming, laden with potential for dispute and likely to cause significant consumer detriment, especially for the most vulnerable.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

Time will tell Regarding consumer law covering these issues, in the immediate short term consumers have the same substantive consumer rights when buying online from EU retailers as before EU Exit. This means consumers have the rights to return goods, and traders have the duty to give cancellation rights to consumers under EU laws. However, whilst at the time of writing none of the above issues have been tested in court by a UK ICC customer, if the time comes for such action, consumers may struggle due to a significant reduction in routes to redress post-EU Exit.

In summary, we are still in a period where EU traders and UK consumers alike are learning about the new rules and what they mean for cross-border sales. Whilst some EU sellers and platforms have rapidly adapted their systems to display the correct prices and information for UK buyers, others have been slow to do so for various reasons, and some have stopped selling to the UK entirely due to increased uncertainty and risk.

Generally speaking, UK consumers shouldn’t notice any changes when purchasing consignments of goods of £135 or below from the EU, but they should be mindful of extra import-related charges for consignments above £135. This means the final price as calculated on a website may no longer represent the ‘total cost’ and additional costs (VAT, customs duties, courier charges etc) may be payable.

The laws regarding the return of goods from the EU are unchanged in principle, but in practice obtaining a refund can be lengthier and more complicated if VAT needs to be reclaimed back from HMRC as part of the process.

Ultimately, if problems occur which require resolution in court, UK consumers have less routes to redress.

If consumers have purchased goods from a trader located in an European Member State, Norway and Iceland and have been charged unexpected duties, taxes or fees when buying online they can contact the UK ICC for help in dealing with these matters. n (Disclaimer: Throughout this article, I refer only to the import of goods (as opposed to services) and I do not cover the particular procedures for Northern Ireland).

About the author

Elisabetta Sciallis is the UK International Consumer Centre Executive, a qualified lawyer and accredited mediator, specialising in cross-border dispute resolution and access to justice. eccnet-uk@ec.europa.eu

| 47

CPPD Module

WORDS BY

Stephen Mogg, Lead Trainer, WRi Stephen is a retired Police Superintendent and Senior Investigating Officer. As the Lead Trainer at the WRi Academy he delivers the portfolio of training modules including the IIP professional practice module for CTSI.

Continuing Personal Professional Development Module

The systematic improvement of your vocational knowledge and skills - both through expansion and refinement – is absolutely essential in keeping on top of an ever-changing regulatory landscape at this time of restricted resources.

As part of its role leading the trading standards profession the CTSI offers free CPPD modules through its publications.

The Journal of Trading Standards is pleased to offer the latest in the series here.

After reading the article, you can head to the CTSI website to complete the questions (also included on page 50).

More details are included on the following spread.

Successful completion is worth one hour of CPPD.

48 |

CPPD Module 20:

Investigations and the use of surveillance Investigative skills are a valuable part of any TSO’s toolkit – but they must be used within a specific legal framework to be effective The use of surveillance in criminal investigations has been an effective method for many years and has been used by the police, trading standards and other agencies successfully in the fight against crime.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) came into force in 2000 and introduced a framework to regulate the use of surveillance powers including directed surveillance, intrusive surveillance, the use of Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) and access to communications data.

RIPA also outlined when an authorisation is necessary and the grounds are: (a) in the interests of national security; (b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder; (c) in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom; (d) in the interests of public safety; (e) for the purpose of protecting public health; (f) for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department; or (g) for any purpose (not falling within paragraphs (a) to (f)) which is specified for the purposes of this subsection by an order made by the Secretary of State.

In 2012 the Protection of Freedoms Act introduced changes to the way in which

local authorities could apply for and use surveillance powers. It introduced the criminal threshold; to qualify, offences had to carry a minimum term of six months imprisonment or relate to the underage sale of alcohol or tobacco.

In addition to the criminal threshold the Protection of Freedoms Act also changed the way in which local authorities could apply for surveillance authority.

In relation to directed surveillance it required local authorities to apply for judicial authority through the courts.

At the time it also introduced judicial authority for access to communications data but this changed through the introduction of amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act. Access to communications data is now authorised at a senior level within the local authority and submitted via the National Anti-Fraud Network to the Office for Communications Data Applications.

Staying within the rules Surveillance is a proven method of obtaining evidence of criminal offences and offenders, and can be used in evidence at trial to good effect. There are, however, strict rules around the use of such powers as they interfere with the private lives of individuals as outlined in the Human Rights Act. Therefore all such activity must be proportionate to the matter under investigation, meet lawful requirements and must be necessary.

The first question any investigator should ask themselves is: can the

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“All such activity must be proportionate to the matter under investigation, meet lawful requirements and must be necessary”

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

| 49

CPPD Module

CPPD MODULE 20: INVESTIGATIONS AND THE USE OF SURVEILLANCE Select the correct statement in each of the eight questions below, and when you’re ready, submit your answers at tradingstandards.uk/cppdtest Question 1 a) Directed Surveillance is the monitoring of individuals using a camera where information is likely to be obtained. b) Directed Surveillance is the monitoring of the public at any time where information is obtained. c) Directed Surveillance is the monitoring of individuals as part of a specific and pre-planned operation where private information is likely to be obtained.

Question 2 a) Directed Surveillance can be conducted by local authorities when a suspect enters a private dwelling. b) Directed Surveillance can be conducted by local authorities when a suspect is seen in the living room of his home. c) Directed Surveillance can be conducted by local authorities when a suspect stands outside the front door of his house.

Question 3 a) Local authorities can obtain authority for surveillance when an offence has been committed. b) Local authorities can obtain authority for surveillance when any crime has been committed or is in relation to the underage sale of alcohol or tobacco. c) Local authorities can obtain authority for surveillance when a crime has been committed which attracts a minimum of six months’ imprisonment or is in relation to the underage sale of alcohol or tobacco.

Question 4 a) Local authorities can apply for communications data through the courts for access to subscriber and billing details. b) Local authorities can apply for communications data through Head of Service and then via the Office for Communications Data Applications for

Entity Data. c) Local authorities can apply for communications data through Head of Service and then via the Office for Communications Data Applications for Entity Data and Events Data.

Question 5 a) Authorisation for ANPR is not required if it is just to obtain the location of a vehicle b) Authorisation for ANPR is not required if it is for historic data only c) Authorisation for ANPR is not required if the suspect is not driving the vehicle Question 6 a) A CHIS can be used without authorisation if it is urgent b) A CHIS can be used as long as they are registered as a source and authorised by Head of Service c) A CHIS can be used only when authorised by a Justice of the Peace Question 7 a) RIPA introduced specific grounds for applications and they included the prosecution of offenders b) RIPA introduced specific grounds for applications and they included the prevention and detection of crime c) RIPA introduced specific grounds for applications and they included the prevention of all offences.

Question 8 a) RIPA provided a range of new powers that Local Authorities could use to prosecute individuals b) RIPA provided a range of new sentences that could be imposed. c) RIPA provided a framework in which Local Authorities could apply for surveillance powers as part of a pre-planned and specific operation.

Applicants who complete the module successfully will be given a certificate. The test must be taken by August 31, 2021. If you have any questions, please email training@tsi.org.uk

50 |

information be obtained by any less intrusive means? If the answer is yes, then surveillance is not appropriate.

So what aspects of RIPA can local authorities use as part of their investigative toolkit? First of all they can conduct directed surveillance, which can include the monitoring of someone’s movements and the direct monitoring of a building or premises. Directed surveillance is conducted as part of a specific investigation and is planned and carried out ‘in such a manner as is likely to result in the obtaining of private information about a person’.

Responding to immediate events is not considered to be directed surveillance

“The public rightly expect privacy in their lives and therefore such powers must be used only when it is appropriate to do so” Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“The first question any investigator should ask themselves is: can the information be obtained by any less intrusive means?”

as it is not planned or part of a specific operation.

Investigators are not entitled to conduct intrusive surveillance which would obtain evidence or intelligence from inside a private residence being used as a dwelling.

This power is only available to the police and security services.

Intrusive surveillance is directed surveillance that involves either residential premises or a private vehicle.

So, for example, following a suspect as part of an operation would be directed surveillance. Placing a camera or listening device in someone’s house would be intrusive surveillance.

Setting up a camera to observe a premises is lawful but if it is a private dwelling/vehicle it cannot be set up so as to see inside that premises.

Public-facing cameras, such as local authority CCTV cameras, can also be used. If these are used to target an individual and their movements then this must be authorised under the Act.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

The introduction of the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system brought with it many benefits in the fight against crime and it has been well publicised over the years. The use of road networks by criminal gangs is well known and targeting them using ANPR is a legitimate technique. Local authorities can use this technology to track suspects in real time but again, this requires authority under the Act. Another benefit of RIPA is the ability to apply for vommunications data in relation to suspects. Local authorities can apply for subscriber and payment details (Entity Data) but not the content of any calls or text messages (Event Data). This is an excellent way to build up a picture of criminal networks and the use of an analyst to interpret the data is advisable.

Heavy responsibility The use of CHIS has become more widespread over the years since RIPA was introduced and the Act allows local authorities to apply to the courts for

authorisation to use such resources in criminal investigations. A CHIS is someone who acts covertly to set up and maintain a relationship with another person without that other person knowing what they are doing. The CHIS then reports back to the investigator/handler with any information they have obtained.

Applications for Directed Surveillance and the use of CHIS must be through the courts and if authorised the applications last for three months for Directed Surveillance and up to 12 months for a CHIS. The use of surveillance powers can result in evidence being obtained at an early stage of an investigation and there is no doubt that when used correctly such powers are one of the most effective in tackling crime.

However, with the use of such powers comes a high level of responsibility and accountability. The public rightly expect privacy in their lives and therefore such powers must be used only when it is appropriate to do so. Therefore remember that if you intend to use such powers they must be used in a proportionate, lawful, accountable and necessary manner. n

About the author

Stephen Mogg is Lead Trainer at WRi Academy. For further information: enquiries@wri-group.com

| 51

Legal

By Alexander Greenwood

Developments in disclosure rules New guidelines on the information that is required to be shared between prosecutors, defenders and the police have real implications for trading standards teams, says Alexander Greenwood In 2015 Liam Allan was a 20-year-old fresher reading criminology at university when he was accused of six counts of rape and a further sexual offence by a girlfriend with whom he had recently split. From the outset he protested his innocence and alluded to numerous phone messages from the complainant that he claimed demonstrated his innocence.

Police officers seized his accuser’s mobile phone and checked the contents.

However, they seemingly cherry-picked messages that were favourable to the prosecution case and served them as evidence against the defendant.

Two years later, on the third day of trial, the defence barrister, wading through 58,000 disclosed messages, found the smoking gun: a message in which the complainant expressly stated the acts were not against her will. The prosecution offered no evidence. Allan was acquitted and free to rebuild the pieces of his shattered life.

Such experiences were not uncommon and perhaps reflected a culture which had developed within both police and the Crown Prosecution Service, reliant on the adversarial system to place the burden on the defence to dig deep and locate material which was “reasonably capable of undermining the case for the prosecution

52 |

or assisting the case for the defence”1 .

Allan was charged with a sexual offence, but the concerns raised in his case have universal application, including for trading standards teams when bringing a prosecution.

Drowning in data Since the advent of the home computer and the internet a quarter of a century ago, prosecutors have been struggling with the need to undertake an effective disclosure process. This is a result of the sheer volume of material gathered when, as is now commonplace, mobile devices are seized by the investigator.

In 2015 Sir Brian Leveson considered the issue in the Court of Appeal2. Quoting his report of the same year he stated: “It is essential that the burden of disclosure should not render the prosecution of economic crime impractical”.

That case involved an appeal against a ruling that proceedings were stayed as an abuse of the court’s process owing to an alleged failure to undertake a full review of computer records and comply with the prosecution’s statutory disclosure duty.3 To have fully reviewed every scrap of information contained in the memory of seized devices would have required vast amounts of manpower and time… an impossible task with which local authority

prosecution teams have long agonised.

In November 2018 the Attorney General (now Lord Chancellor) Robert Buckland QC’s Review of the efficiency and effectiveness of disclosure in the criminal justice system4 was published. It “highlighted significant concerns with the culture around disclosure, engagement between prosecutors, investigators and defence practitioners, and the challenge of the exponential increase in digital data”.5 Recommendations included earlier engagement between the parties, harnessing the use of technology and culture change.

Late last year the new Attorney General’s Guidance and CPIA Code of Practice were published, bringing in a new regime and approach.

Timing of disclosure Disclosure is now to be made at the outset of the case. In the Magistrates’ Court where a not guilty plea is anticipated, disclosure should be served in advance

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

“The scope and scale of local authority trading standards prosecutions have expanded enormously to meet the access to the national and international marketplaces afforded by the internet” S3 Criminal Procedure and Investigation Act 1996

1

R v R and others (Practice Note) (2015) EWCA Crim 1941

2

Criminal Procedure and investigations Act 1996.

3

4

Sir Brian Leveson (2015)

See Foreword to Att Gen Guidelines 2020

5

of the first hearing. In the Crown Court where a not guilty plea is anticipated initial disclosure should now be served prior to the plea and trial preparation hearing – that is, the first hearing in the Crown Court.

Historic difficulties in local authorities obtaining Police National Computer (PNC) records meant they were often not obtained until a late stage in proceedings (despite the inherent risk that prosecution witnesses may have feet of clay).

The Guidance now requires that this task MUST be undertaken at a preliminary stage. Prosecution agencies should ensure smooth relations with local police providers to avoid criticism or successful appeals.

The Guidelines provide for the creation of a document called a Disclosure Management Document (DMD), which sets out at the outset of the case an agreed strategy for dealing disclosure and to be served with initial disclosure.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

6

N.B. A draft template of a DMD which can be tailored can be found at Annex C of the new Guidance.

7

Para 97

Passing the disclosure test The Attorney General’s Guidelines state that the following material is likely to meet the test for disclosure and that “prosecutors should start their review of the material with a presumption that this material should be disclosed to the defence”: ▪ records (e.g. phonecalls to Action Fraud) containing descriptions of an alleged offence or offender; ▪ incident logs; ▪ contemporaneous records of the incident; ▪ previous accounts made by complainant or witnesses; ▪ interview records; ▪ material casting doubt on the reliability of a witness (e.g. relevant previous convictions and relevant cautions of prosecution witnesses.)

Ideally it is a document agreed between investigator and prosecutor, but also the defence, which “will require careful preparation and presentation which is tailored to the individual case”.6 The DMD is a “living document” which should be amended to reflect developments in the case and be kept up to date, for example upon the receipt of the defence statement. The DMD is intended to “assist the court in case management and also enable to defence to engage from an early stage with the prosecution’s proposed approach to disclosure”.

CPR 3.3 requires that each party must “actively assist” the court including at the beginning of the case: “communication between the prosecutor and the defendant at the first available opportunity” to determine “what information or other material is required by one party or another and why and what is to be done, by whom and when”.

The guidance states: “The prosecutor must also encourage dialogue and prompt engagement with the defence about the likely issues for trial. The defence are under a duty to engage with the prosecutor in order to aid understanding about the defence case and the likely issues for trial at this early stage”.

In order to enable a DMD to be compiled at an early stage the duty on the investigator is to provide written details of the lines of inquiry undertaken “at the point of or prior to charge”7.

The focus at the Plea and Trial Preparation Hearings where there is a not guilty plea is to engage the defence

| 53

Legal

By Alexander Greenwood

“The prosecutor must encourage dialogue and prompt engagement with the defence about the likely issues for trial” in the disclosure process at that stage.

Practitioners should not be afraid of calling out opponents in open court where there has not been adequate engagements. In fact it is their duty so to do.8 Judges in the Crown Courts are demanding DMDs at the first hearing.

The Guidance includes consideration of the balance to be struck between the right to a fair trial9 and the right to private and family life.10 This is particularly important where phones or computers have been seized which belong to third parties. (N.B. where the device belongs to the defendant there can be limited objection to downloading of material).

The rationale for obtaining material should be open and transparent and involve consultation by the disclosure officer, the prosecutor and, the defence (a novelty). Where there is a conflict, the right to a fair trial is an absolute right - and presumably trumps the right to privacy.

Digital material The scope and scale of local authority trading standards prosecutions have expanded enormously to meet the access to the national and international marketplaces afforded by the internet.

Many routine investigations often engage digital material of some form.

The new guidelines (Annex A) crystallises the body of caselaw developed which has considered in respect of the balance between finite resources and the prosecution disclosure duty.

54 |

The guideline concedes: “where investigations involve a large quantity of material it may be impossible for investigators to examine every item of material individually. Therefore there should be no expectation that this should happen”.

“Prosecutors and investigators must ensure that any line of inquiry pursued in relation to the digital devices of victims and witnesses are reasonable in the context of the case”.

In cases involving very large quantities of data, the person in charge of the investigation will develop a strategy setting out how the material should be analysed or searched, including a possible initial scoping exercise. Such a process should be agreed with the prosecutor and conveyed to the defence via the DMD. Annex A of the new Guideline distils previous caselaw. Its preamble states that it is designed “without imposing unrealistic or disproportionate demands on the investigator and prosecutor”.

The Guideline recommends in “cases involving a large amount(s) of digital material” investigators should complete an Investigation Management Document (“IMD”) which will in turn inform the DMD. In such cases the prosecutor should be consulted “ideally before it is seized” and recommends the advice of a “digital forensic specialist”. The Guideline also cites earlier police guidance.11 The defence should be invited at an early stage to participate in defining the scope of the “reasonable searches” that may be expected to undermine the case or assist the defence. Robust case management powers are expected to be used.

General principles include: a) No action should be taken that changes data on a device; b) Original data should only be accessed by someone competent and able to

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

explain the relevance and implications of their action; c) An audit trail should be kept of all processes followed; d) The investigator in charge has responsibility for ensuring the principles are followed.

Before searching a suspect’s premises where digital material is likely to be found consideration must be given to : a) What sort of material is likely to be found, and what volume; b) Whether it is likely that relevant material can be viewed and copied; and c) What should be seized.

Investigators will be expected to have considered the practicalities of seizing devices and the impact of such seizures on a business, and the likely timescale to return the equipment. Practitioners seeking to avoid hefty civil suits for damages must ensure that statutory powers and authorisations are complied with or the owner of the device gives permission.

In addition the CPS has also produced further guidance which encapsulates recent caselaw and with which practitioners would be well advised to be acquainted.12 It is important for investigators and prosecutors to remember that the duty under the CPIA Code is to pursue all “reasonable lines of inquiry including those that point away from the suspect”.

It is not the prosecution’s duty to comb through all the material in its possession.

Where there is a large volume of material it is perfectly proper for the investigator to search by sample, key words or other appropriate search tools or analytical techniques to locate relevant passages, phrases and identifiers. It is at this stage that perhaps the involvement of the defence becomes most important.

Further sampling and searches may become appropriate where further evidence or unused material is obtained; the defence statement is served, or the

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

defence request/apply (s 8 CPIA) for further sampling or searches.

Record keeping is imperative of all material seized, strategy, analytical techniques and software used, including the identity of the person who undertook the task and the time and date of the activity; records of all searches, search words or terms and key judgements when refining search categories. If a particular “hit” is not examined the justification must also be recorded.

When completing the schedule of unused material it will “generally be disproportionate” to list each item of material separately. Material can be listed in blocks and described by quantity and generic title possibly cross referring to the search terms or other parameters set out in the DMD. In future it will be extremely difficult for the defence to take “cheap points” criticising the search parameters if invited to engage they declined, or it is they who provided or endorsed the search terms.

When applied the new Guidelines will ensure fairness, protect officers from unmerited criticism, undermine fallacious defence points and ensure the safety of the conviction that follows. They are to be welcomed. n 1

S3 Criminal Procedure and Investigation Act 1996

8

CPR 3.3(2)e

9

Art 6 ECHR

10

Art 8 ECHR

11

Association of Chief Police Officers ACPO Good

12

CPS Guidance on “Reasonable lines of enquiry and communications evidence” and “Disclosure Guidance on Communications Evidence” see also R v E( 2018) EWCA 2426(Crim)

About the author

Alexander Greenwood Llb (Hons), is Barrister at law at Apex Chambers, Cardiff and Gough Square, London (door tenant).

He is a member of the editorial committee, Consumer and Trading Standards Law and Practice 2021.

| 55

Symposium 2021

By Karin Layton

Make your way to the Midlands…

CTSI’s first get-together in more than two years is set to be better than ever, says CTSI Events and Communications Executive Karin Layton COVID-19 forced our hand in 2020, making it necessary to move our annual event online. It is for this reason that after much deliberation, CTSI is thrilled to be able to host a face-to-face event from September 28-30 – a little later than planned.

We are in a fresh, new venue in Birmingham – we haven’t been to the city since 1895. That year marked the fourteenth time that the profession came together in a conference format. Other momentous historical events that occurred in 1895 include the FA Cup being stolen from a Birmingham shop window, the National Trust being founded and

56 |

the first Rugby League game to be played in England.

The venue for this year, the aptly named Eastside Rooms, is situated in the east of the city centre, a stone’s throw away from the Birmingham City Council offices. There are several exciting new developments in the city, and 2020 saw the launch of this fantastic venue in what is known as the Knowledge Quarter.

The design combines innovation with Birmingham’s industrial heritage, while the linked Aloft Hotel is part of the Marriott chain and features more than 200 bedrooms with a large restaurant and cocktail lounge.

Outside the venue, you can experience forward-thinking architecture or explore Birmingham’s majestic waterways, lined with history and culture. Birmingham is well-known for shopping and boasts many eateries and drinking establishments.

It truly has something for everyone. Its excellent transport links make it easily accessible and we hope to see delegates attending Symposium from across the UK. CTSI’s annual event is always the topic of much discussion, not just here at Head Office but also throughout the profession.

You may remember we had planned changes for 2020 based upon your feedback, and we are happy to tell you that we have kept these.

The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that the event will run Tuesday to Thursday this year. We want to see if this

Summer 2021

Journal of Trading Standards

SPONSORS

is preferable for attendees and employers.

Status International, the UK’s leading independent supplier of lighting and electrical accessories, continues to be our main sponsor.

For the fifth year running, trueCall, a UK-based call monitoring service, is sponsoring the notepads. We are also proud to announce Civica, a global digital solutions provider, will sponsor our Welcome Drinks on Tuesday night. The team is working with the Branch to look at an informal eve-of-Symposium meet for those who arrive early and are about on Monday evening.

“We had planned changes for 2020 based upon your feedback, and we are happy to tell you that we have kept these” www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

Plenary preparations have also commenced, and following the feedback received in 2019 and 2020, we will look to offer more best practice-based examples for you to enjoy. The political, practical and professional focus will be maintained to provide a broad range of information for everyone. We will ask session holders who have purchased seminars to provide an early indication of their topic and to focus on education.

Book your place to join us in Birmingham via the booking system; full details are available on the CTSI website.

Tickets for seminar sessions will be released in July. The tabletop exhibition remains a cost-effective way of delivering the event free of charge to our members.

We will have a recharge station available in the exhibition hall with a small amount of cash catering for those who need food on the go. The team continues to look at ways of widening our audience to provide better networking opportunities for all.

We were disappointed that we never made it to Southport – the venue leaseholder went into administration at the beginning of the pandemic – but all is not lost, we will continue to work with Sefton Tourist Board to ensure that we get a date to go back there as soon as possible.

Please look out for further information about the 2021 event through our regular Symposium diaries. n

Where next?

Bristol will be the next venue on the Symposium map. As soon as we return from Birmingham it will be full steam ahead planning for June 2022.

Ideas you want to share?

Contact the events team by emailing tsievents@tsi.org.uk or calling 01268 582245

| 57

Last Word

Where would we be without…

food labelling?

Eleni Chalkidou Eleni is Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Trading Standards and Director of Communications at CTSI

Putting a robust process in place ahead of changes will ensure less surprises further down the line

58 |

Knowing what’s in the food we eat can be a matter of life and death Traipsing through a gargantuan, lockdown-restricted supermarket, my eight-year-old boy-wonder Achilles in tow, searching for guacamole, is certainly not my idea of an adventure. When Achilles first asked for “quakeemolee”, there was no doubt I’d be buying creme fraiche, lemons and avocados to make it myself – but the shop assistant put a spanner in the works when he muffled: “If there are no avocados on the shop floor, we have none left!”

Achilles leads the way and eventually we find ourselves in what appears to be the Mexican food aisle looking at Old El Paso Squeezy Guacamole Sauce. There are few things in life I consider incredibly excruciating but reading food labels is one of them. Don’t get me wrong; I am well aware that we are very lucky in the UK, especially around

food labelling, as we have some of the best laws in the world in this area.

If you are alcohol-intolerant like myself you have to check everything before you eat it to ensure it has no alcohol, as even the smallest amount could make me very ill indeed. As a child I remember being violently sick every time after communion to the point where the priest declared me possessed by the devil. Well, maybe so.

In the past this meant if an item did not have ingredients displayed, I just would not buy it. But now change is coming. Natasha’s Law, also known as the catchy UK Food Information Amendment, is on the way and according to these new rules, PPDS (Prepacked for Direct Sale) food will need to clearly display the name of the food and a full ingredients list, with allergenic ingredients emphasised in for example bold, italics or a different colour.

The amendment was brought about following the actions of a lobbying group which was led by the parents of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, a teenager who died after suffering an allergic reaction to an undeclared ingredient in a prepacked meal. The Government confirmed that stronger laws are necessary and will be implemented to protect those with food allergies.

This is likely to have a major impact on SMEs. Do I expect there to be more businesses seeking additional support from local TS services? Yes. What about an increase in complaints from members of the public if FBOs are non-compliant?

Yes, that too. So as a business, how do you ensure you are Natasha’s Law ready by October 1?

Putting a robust process in place ahead of changes will ensure less surprises further down the line. Making a list of your suppliers and auditing products and ingredients can go a long way but the way this information is retained and transferred onto labels will be crucial.

To avoid accidental human error a point could be made that investing in the correct software which is fully compliant and can integrate with label printing processes may be a good idea but certainly training staff and educating them so they are fully aware of Natasha’s Law will be of paramount importance. Perhaps it is even worth appointing a food allergen champion for ongoing training and compliance. n

Summer 2021

CPPD allocation for each course completed

Free EU Exit training for trading standards professionals

Delivered by CTSI consumer law experts, this extensive programme of digital content will provide you with the vital information affecting trading standards regulation and an opportunity for you to “ask the experts”.

Suitable for all trading standards professionals from students to practitioners:

3 refresh your knowledge 3 maintain your competencies 3 keep up to date with current legislation

EU EXIT PODCAST SERIES

EU EXIT DIGITAL TRAINING

3 increase your understanding of the implications of your work

EU EXIT E-LEARNING PORTAL

3 get answers to your questions 3 obtain CPPD certificates

DIGITAL TRAINING NOTIFICATION

To find out more visit:

www.tradingstandards.uk

CTSI SYMPOSIUM 2021 The UK’s leading consumer affairs and trading standards event

WELCOME BACK - WE’RE GOING LIVE! Join us at the Eastside Rooms and Aloft Hotel, Birmingham 28-30 September 2021 Exhibition | Seminars | Networking | Sponsorship

RISE TO THE CHALLENGE

DIRECTION

NEXT LEVEL

DIVERSITY

PROFESSIONAL LEADERSHIP

SUPPORTIVE

Thank you to our sponsors for their continued support: Main Sponsor

Status International (UK) Ltd. People in Pursuit of Excellence

www.tradingstandards.uk/symposium2021 #CTSISymposium