Journal of Trading Standards Summer 2022

✚

Material information

Could new rules for property listings solve an old problem?

✚ Imperial markings

What are the implications for Legal Metrology?

✚

Stubbing it out

Following a nationwide crackdown on illicit tobacco

✚ Leadership qualities

Do you have what it takes to lead the profession?

Summer 2022 | www.journaloftradingstandards.co.uk

PERFECT STORM

With food, fuel and energy prices soaring, consumers face a tidal wave of detriment – does Trading Standards have the resources it needs to weather the treacherous conditions?

Stronger together!

The true benefit of being a CTSI member stems from strength in unity. Collectively our voice becomes louder and our impact deeper.

Established in 1881, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute has a proud association with the profession and continues to represent the interests of all trading standards individuals in both private and public sectors - whether you work in a local authority, a business or are self-employed there is a category of membership for you!

Introduce a friend

£15 £15 Already a member?

Introduce a friend or colleague and receive a £15 Love2Shop voucher

Other benefits include: • Free entry to the CTSI Symposium • Discounted training fees • Free CPPD scheme • CTSI Practitioner status • Exclusive discounts with our membership partners • Free copy of the Journal of Trading Standards twice a year

Professional recognition and pride in being part of a professional body are high on the list of benefits as a CTSI member, along with a route to expert advice and support from our Lead Officer Network and a dedicated Policy Team, ensuring our voice is heard in Government.

Whether you are at the start of your career or a seasoned professional, by becoming a CTSI member you will be joining a community of passionate and like-minded professionals and a Chartered Institute you can be proud of.

For more information or to download an application form visit www.tradingstandards.uk/practitioners/join-us

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

Leader

BACK TO BASICS Life does not appear to be getting easier for consumers.

Every month a new situation or marketplace presents more prospects for consumer vulnerability. This is certainly true of the cost-of-living crisis, which could plunge many into a spiral of debt from rising household bills, force them into positions of increasing vulnerability, and open the floodgates to criminals Louise Baxter seeking to exploit them.

Chair, CTSI The need for Trading Standards to innovate, collaborate and protect against the tide of threats looming over the horizon has never been greater. And the need for CTSI’s voice to be heard loud and clear by businesses, consumers and Government has never been greater either.

During my tenure as CTSI Chair, I have “The need for Trading seen the need for the Institute, and the Trading Standards profession as a whole, to get back to Standards to innovate, and think about what we are actually here collaborate and protect basics for. Because of my background in addressing has never been greater” consumer vulnerability and promoting consumer education, I believe that an important reason for our existence involves understanding the ever-changing nature of consumer vulnerability – and engaging with businesses, regulators and legislators to bolster safeguards for those most in need.

I firmly believe that an understanding of consumer vulnerability should be embedded in everything we do. We must think about inclusivity and consider all vulnerabilities at the point of design of products and services. Part of this should involve the creation of consumer vulnerability champions whose remit is to consider consumer vulnerability and instil this way of thinking within organisations.

The CTSI Vision, which is being launched ahead of this year’s Conference in Bristol, is an important new milestone for the Institute. By addressing the raft of challenges facing the profession, the Vision is an opportunity to get back to basics and examine how we can better support Trading Standards, the value we can offer our members, and how our policy leadership can influence the national agenda. Only then can we be fully equipped to take on the threats facing consumers.

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:

Laura Phillips, Giles Speid Writers:

Matt Allwright, Helen Nugent, William Henry, 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 © 2022, Chartered Trading Standards Institute. All rights reserved.

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

| 03

Consumer Codes Approval Scheme (CCAS) With more than £97 billion of consumer spending protected, CCAS continues to help businesses raise industry standards.

By promoting CCAS to businesses, this encourages consumers to make the right checks before they purchase.

Displaying the CCAS approved logo will help businesses to promote themselves as one that consumers can trust.

Being a member of CCAS can help to support tender applications.

CCAS is operated by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute. www.tradingstandards.uk/consumercodes

00 t 80,0 s o m re Al ses a s e n i f bus art o p w no S CCA

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

Louise Baxter

Wendy Potts

Chief Executive, CTSI

Chair, CTSI

Immediate past-Chair, CTSI

Louise is also CTSI Lead Officer for Consumer Advice & Education and Head of the NTS Scams Team.

Wendy is also Chair of the Business Members Group and sits on the CTSI 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.

Duncan Stephenson Duncan is Director of Policy and Public Affairs at CTSI.

Tendy Lindsay

Damien Doherty

David MacKenzie

Chartered Trading Standards Practitioner

Chief Inspector for Northern Ireland Trading Standards Service

Trading Standards Manager, Highland Council

C O N T R I B U TO R S

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.

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

LEGAL

Laura Phillips Laura is a barrister at Gough Square Chambers specialising in consumer protection law.

CPPD

Nikki Pasek

Phil Owen

Gareth Walters

Giles Speid

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.

Team Manager - North West Team (Queens Park & Harrow Road wards)

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

Nikki runs the Regulatory Leaders Programme and Aspiring Leaders Programme for CTSI.

Prof Louise M Hassan Professor of Consumer Psychology, Bangor Business School

Louise specialises in understanding consumer protection issues.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

| 05

Help businesses comply with consumer law Making sure you are trading on the right side of the law is essential for any organisation and understanding your rights and obligations will help to reduce the risk of legal action and costly mistakes. Business Companion’s business in focus section contains a collection of guides, checklists, explainer videos and other resources suitable for traders of all kinds to understand how consumer law affects them.

www.businesscompanion.info/focus

Business in Focus

Renewable home energy

Business in Focus

Business in Focus

Knives, bladed items and hazardous materials

Consumer vulnerability

A guide for businesses supplying bladed articles, acids, corrosive substances, explosives precursors and poisons

A guide to identifying consumers who may be vulnerable

Making sure your business complies with consumer law

Making sure your business complies with consumer law

This guide was produced as part of a business advice project by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

A guide for businesses

This guide was produced as part of a business advice project by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

Business in Focus

Business in Focus

Business in Focus

Business in Focus

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

Selling goods via online platforms

Practical holiday law

Car traders and consumer law

Guidance for traders

Guidance for traders

Guidance for business

Guidance for dealerships

Make sure your business complies with The Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes (Competent Authorities and Information) Regulations 2015

Make sure your business complies with consumer law

With key facts to make sure your business complies with the latest holiday laws (inc. 2018 Package Travel Regs)

Make sure your business complies with consumer law

This guide was produced as part of a business advice project by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

This guide was produced as part of a business advice project by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

This guide was produced as part of a business advice project by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

This guide was produced as part of a business advice project by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

www.businesscompanion.info

Contents NEWS & FEATURES

08 | News

COVER STORY

FEATURE

18

30

Our regular look at the success stories, statistics and goings-on in Trading Standards across the UK.

12 | Voices from the Front Line Trading Standards officers talk about what’s happening on their patch, from unsafe products to metrology training.

14 | A lifelong ally A look at how Trading Standards activities intersect with almost all aspects of our daily lives, from childhood to old age.

17 | Opinion: Matt Allwright

Soaring energy bills and grocery costs… plummeting funding for Trading Standards services… surely something has to give?

The cost of living What will the cost-of-living crisis mean for consumer protection? Our experts discuss how it could affect Trading Standards.

Material information The NTS Estate and Letting Agency Team has brought together the property industry to tackle an age-old problem.

FEATURE

INTERVIEW

40

42

24 | Opinion: John Herriman Consumer confidence has been on a steady decline. What role can Trading Standards play in giving the economy a jump-start?

26 | Child safety An investigation by Salford Trading Standards into a company selling unsafe toys proves the value of persistence.

28 | Opinion: Duncan Stephenson

CTSI’s new policy chief talks about growing and developing the voice and influence of the Institute.

32 | Illicit tobacco

Operation CeCe has brought together a network of groups to stub out the problem of illegal cigarette and tobacco sales.

Mentoring and equality Giles Speid explains the thinking behind a new initiative designed to promote open conversations about difficult subjects.

In conversation: Lord Jamie Lindsay The CTSI President discusses the vital importance of accreditation and standards in building consumer confidence.

FEATURE

FEATURE

46

52

36 | CTSI College of Fellows How the College has come up with new initiatives designed to help its members get through tough times.

56 | CTSI Conference 2022 What to look forward to at this year’s event.

58 | Last Word

Why it is so important for retailers to play fair when it comes to product pricing.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

Imperial markings A potential reintroduction of imperial markings has raised eyebrows. But what are the implications for Trading Standards?

The ABCs of CBD The growing market for CBD products makes for a potentially problematic new area for Trading Standards.

| 07

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

Upfront 60 SECONDS

NTS APPOINTS CHAIR

Lord Michael Bichard will take over as the Chair of National Trading Standards from 1 June 2022. Lord Bichard said: "We all know these are challenging times for Trading Standards and for consumer protection more widely and I am looking forward to working with everyone in the Trading Standards community."

DATA

CONSUMER HARM IN SPOTLIGHT The Consumer Protection Study 2022 reveals levels of consumer detriment in the UK between April 2020 and April 2021

‘POA’ LISTINGS ILLEGAL

National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Team (NTSELAT) has published its opinion that the use of ‘POA’ or ‘price on application’ in property listings contravenes consumer protection legislation. NTSELAT says the use of the term is likely to be misleading as it withholds – or in some cases masks – the asking price from consumers.

UKICC SECURES FUNDS

The UK International Consumer Centre (UKICC), operated

by CTSI, has secured funding for at least another year, meaning UK consumers will have access to redress in the event of an overseas purchase going wrong. The UKICC was previously funded in part by the EU, but is now funded solely by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

CHILD SAFETY CAMPAIGN

CTSI, along with the British Toy & Hobby Association the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and OPSS, is supporting a consumer campaign to raise awareness of choking risks from small objects in very young children and babies.

08 |

FACTS & FIGURES

Key stats from the Consumer Protection Study 2022

(Source: Consumer Protection Study)

The Consumer Protection Study 2022 was commissioned by Which? and the Consumer Protection Partnership to examine the ways in which UK consumers experience detriment from the goods and services they purchase, and to assess the role played by the consumer protection system in addressing that detriment. The study was conducted by the National Centre for Social Research.

While the study found that the majority of purchases were made without a problem, or caused very low levels of detriment, a small number of problems caused significant harm, with £54bn in detriment left unaddressed.

Of the 6,582 individuals interviewed for the study, 69% experienced at least one problem with something they bought. Of those, 36% had a problem with a product or service purchased online; 27% had an issue with a shopbased purchase; 15% via a phone call; 3% through an online private seller; and 2% of problems arose from goods bought directly from sales reps. The vast majority of products that caused detriment had a value of less than £100.

The study also explores the typical ‘complaints journey’ of a customer who experiences a problem. It found that 82% of complaints were initiated by the consumer, with more than half being resolved.

Consumers aged between 18 and 39, and those facing financial problems, were more likely to experience detriment, yet were less likely to take action because they were not sure

who to contact or how to complain.

Detriment varied in the four UK countries, with consumers in England and Scotland more likely to experience harm than those living in Wales and Northern Ireland.

The total volume of net monetised detriment was £46.1bn in England, £4.7bn in Scotland, £2.5bn in Wales and £0.8bn in Northern Ireland, reflecting differences in population sizes.

Respondents thought that 43% of their experiences of detriment were caused or made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The key conclusions of the report are that the UK’s consumer protection system is generally effective and the response to detriment offered by sellers and service providers can be described as ‘adequate’. While the consumer protection system mitigated the presence of negative outcomes for most of the consumers, some incidents of detriment led to high levels of net monetised detriment.

The study recommends that interventions should focus on areas where detriment resulting in relatively higher financial loss for consumers is more common. The study also found that a substantial number of consumers reported very negative consequences on their mental and physical health, and on their household finances, as a result of the detriment they had experienced.

To read the study in full, visit www.gov.uk/government/publications/consumer-protection-study-2022

4

229.8 million

69%

55%

median number of incidents per consumer

of consumers in the UK experienced consumer detriment

problems with products and services experienced

by UK consumers over the 12-month period

of consumers encountered problems with subscriptions or services

48%

of consumers experienced problems with items they purchased

Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

POLICY

CTSI WELCOMES REFORMS New consumer protection laws have been welcomed, but the Institute remains concerned about funding of essential services

CTSI has broadly welcomed a range of reforms to consumer protection, but has cautioned that the public faces a rising tide of risk and further investment in Trading Standards is needed.

The Government's plans include making it illegal to write or host fake product reviews and clearer rules around subscription services. There will also be a requirement for prepayment schemes like Christmas savings clubs to fully safeguard customers’ money through insurance or trust accounts.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is being given enhanced powers to tackle rip-offs and bad business practices, and will be able to directly enforce consumer law. It will also have new powers to fine firms up to 10% of their global turnover for mistreating customers.

CTSI Chief Executive, John Herriman, said: “The proposed reinforcing of consumer rights comes at an important time when many people are struggling

with the cost-of-living crisis and need to know that mechanisms will be put in place to prevent them suffering unnecessary financial loss as a result of unscrupulous practices.

“The reforms are very welcome but we must also be honest about the steadily rising levels of risk consumers face, not just from price rises and faulty goods, but from the fact that in times of crisis we always see an increase in scams and other fraudulent activity from those who seek to exploit others' hardship. The vulnerable are particularly at risk. The billions of consumer detriment reported in the Consumer Protection Study conducted a year ago are likely to be outdated. The likelihood is that the levels of risk will have increased since then. High levels of detriment result in lower consumer confidence, impacting the economy.

“Trading Standards services are on the front line of protecting the public from harm. We are sadly seeing a return

of doorstep selling since pandemic restrictions were removed. We expect a rise in fake money-saving deals offered on energy prices and many other scams.

The proposed reforms will address some of this but not all, and there is a need for effective funding at all levels of the consumer protection system, from national to local. The reforms focus on the national level, the CMA, which is important, but local structures are not being addressed, which will result in some areas of consumer detriment not being fully tackled, especially after a decade that has seen cuts of 50% in capacity in some Trading Standards services whose sole focus is to protect consumers.”

Matthew Upton, Director of Policy at Citizens Advice, said: “The measures to deal with subscription traps are particularly welcome. We hope these will help bring unscrupulous traders to book and stop shoppers being duped by underhand tactics.”

Making a difference Trading Standards enforcement and prevention activities making an impact across the UK

Holy water warning Ealing Council Trading Standards has advised the public not to buy water labelled as ‘Zamzam water’ because it may pose a risk to health. Zamzam water is considered sacred to Muslims. Previous discoveries across the UK have found that unofficial Zamzam water on sale contained poisons and high levels of arsenic.

COVID-19 test fraud

TSS seizes fakes

Warwickshire County Council Trading Standards has prosecuted a fraudster who tricked holidaymakers into paying for fake COVID-19 ‘fit to fly’ certificates at the height of the pandemic. Saranjeet Trina Kandola of Leamington Spa traded as Travel Test Solutions Ltd, which offered PCR tests costing between £60 and £149.

Trading Standards Officers from Glasgow, Renfrewshire & North Lanarkshire have joined forces with the aim of cracking down on the sale of counterfeit goods. The operation was coordinated by Trading Standards Scotland (TSS) following reports from a number of consumers who had purchased counterfeit Apple products.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

Illicit cigarette scam A husband and wife who run a shop in Mountain Ash, Wales, have been successfully prosecuted

by Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s Trading Standards. The pair pleaded guilty to a total of 24 offences relating to the sale and possession for supply of counterfeit tobacco products and running a fraudulent business.

Timeshare crooks Two men who were involved in a complex timeshare property scam have been jailed following an investigation by the Public Protection Partnership and the National Trading Standards Tri Region Investigation Team. Anthony Lea and Ian Hollis were sentenced to three years and 18 months imprisonment respectively in March.

| 09

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

Upfront

OUT IN THE FIELD

Trading Standards activities have included tackling counterfeits and cracking down on street drinking

Licence plate scam

Rogue builder jailed

An investigation by Slough Borough Council Trading Standards has resulted in hefty costs for a company that sold counterfeit licence plate holders.

Sola Sales Ltd was ordered to pay £292,000 in confiscation fees and fined £10,000 for five counts of selling goods that had a sign likely to be mistaken for a registered trademark, four counts of possession of counterfeit goods, and two counts of transferring criminal property.

The crime was exposed when BMW started investigating the counterfeit products and made three test purchases through eBay and in person. This resulted in Trading Standards officers inspecting the company's warehouse, where they found 3,388 fake number plates.

A tradesman has been handed a 43-month custodial sentence and a Criminal Behaviour Order for 10 years at Bristol Crown Court after pleading guilty to running a fraudulent business.

Between October 2016 and April 2018, Daniel Denison of Torquay was paid significant amounts of money by homeowners for building work which he either failed to complete or never even started.

An investigation led by the National Trading Standards South West Regional Investigations Team, hosted by Bristol City Council, identified a total of 18 victims from Bristol, Bath, Exeter, Plymouth and across the South West, who between them suffered financial losses totalling £135,000.

SCAMS

ROGUE TRADERS ON THE RISE An uptick in home improvement work since the end of lockdown has sparked a flurry of complaints in the South West

10 |

Oxford Street fakes A joint operation between Westminster City Council Trading Standards and the Metropolitan Police has seized around £100,000 worth of counterfeit and illegal goods from a shop on London’s Oxford Street. The haul included almost 4,500 disposable vapes which contained excessive levels of nicotine or which failed to conform to UK safety standards. Also seized were 420 counterfeit vaping products and 2,366 ‘Snus’ products.

The Heart of the South West Trading Standards Service received almost 800 complaints about rogue traders from householders across the region during the most recent financial year. The figure – an average of more than two a day – reflects a rise in the number of building fraud claims across the area’s 11 Trading Standards authorities.

The value of work totalled more than £9.5m, with the highest value claim worth more than £420,000.

The complaints related to work including loft conversions, extensions, roofing, chimneys, paving, driveways, decking and general building work.

Sherry Carter, Heart of the South West Trading Standards Service, said: “We continue to receive a large volume

of complaints about building work and since April 1 this year we have received more than two complaints every day.

The complaints received included both civil and criminal matters.”

Rogue builders use a range of tactics to trick homeowners into using them.

Nuisance drinkers

Ealing’s Trading Standards and Licensing teams joined forces with police earlier this year to inspect several off-licences in Southall, following reports of street drinkers harassing lone women in the area. The operation reminded off-licence owners of their legal obligations to support efforts to curb street drinking around the borough. Street drinking is often seen as a nuisance to members of the public and can contribute to more serious criminal behaviour.

The latest methods include fake online reviews, posting on social media sites and advertising on non-verified online platforms. Charging upfront and asking for more money for apparently increased material costs were also common complaints put to Trading Standards.

Councillor Rufus Gilbert, Devon County Council’s Cabinet Member responsible for Trading Standards, said: “It is not surprising that the upward trend in home improvements since the pandemic has led to increased activity by rogue builders. Despite many complainants having done some due diligence before instructing works, this was not sufficient to protect them from the fraudsters.”

Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

BREAK DOWN The Friends Against Scams Impact Survey 2021, released this year, asked people who had taken FAS training for their views

93%

of respondents said they now know where to get advice about scams and where to report them

1%

lost money to scams since the training; before training, the figure was 17%

60 SECONDS

£51m

COMPANIES HOUSE

the total savings to the UK economy resulting from people becoming Friends Against Scams as of the end of 2021

20%

increase in confidence in identifying scams since completing the training

74%

of respondents have encouraged others to complete the training

(Source: Friends Against Scams)

VAPING PRODUCTS

PROPERTY

SCOTTS TAKES VAPES

NTSELAT TRAINING

A project across Scotland has seized thousands of noncompliant vaping products

The Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS) has coordinated a comprehensive examination of the market in Scotland for single-use vaping products. The project was carried out between October and December 2021, and found a wide range of non-compliant devices, with both safety and health risks.

The project involved most of Scotland’s local authority Trading Standards services and was influenced by information from Trading Standards throughout the UK that illegal single-use nicotine vaping products (NVPs) were on sale at retailers across the country and being used by people under the age of 18.

Trading Standards teams visited 721 premises during the project and seized 88,839 vaping devices as they were either not labelled correctly in accordance with the TARP Regulations, did not contain sufficient CLP regulation information or had not been published by the MHRA. In addition, 3,683 disposable vaping devices were seized as they had a capacity above the legal limit of 2ml.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

The NTS Estate and Letting Agency Team is offering a range of learning resources Environmental concerns were highlighted around the waste battery aspect of the devices, millions of which are imported every year, mostly from China. Concerns were also raised around the design of the devices, which are often brightly coloured and made to be appealing to children.

According to SCOTTS Chair, Graeme Paton, “Trading Standards teams across Scotland treat the sale of nicotine vaping products as a high priority, especially where children are concerned, and the rapid expansion of this market for disposable nicotine devices is worrying and presents real risks to the environment and health, especially the health of young people.

“SCOTSS works very closely with Scottish Government colleagues around the regulation of nicotine vaping devices in Scotland and we will be highlighting these risks so that appropriate action can be taken.”

Sheila Duffy, CEO of Action on Smoking and Health (Scotland) added: “Trading Standards Officers in Scotland have done an excellent piece of work here in highlighting these issues.”

The National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Team (NTSELAT) has bolstered the range of training materials available to Trading Standards Officers and professionals in related fields with a new series of e-learning resources.

NTSELAT Senior Manager, James Munro, said: “We've been running local authority training for the last three years but most recently, local authorities will have seen a whole string of new webinars and online workshops.

Those are available to all local authority officers around the country. We work with Environmental Health and Housing Officers, as well as Trading Standards.”

The resources on offer include an Estate Sgency Compliance Toolkit, a Tenant Fees Act 2019 eLearning enforcement course, and a dedicated Knowledge Hub group for local authority enforcement officers.

For further information about the resources available, visit www.bristol. gov.uk/web/ntselat/enforcement

Reforms to the way in which Companies House is able to share data with enforcement bodies, including Trading Standards, have been announced. The changes mean that information about discrepancies in companies' listings can be proactively shared for the prevention and detection of crime.

BEIS CONSULTS CTSI

CTSI Chair of the Board, Steve Ruddy, has provided evidence to a Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee about post-pandemic economic growth and post-Brexit competition. The session covered a wide range of issues, including the work of Trading Standards services in a challenging budgetary environment.

CCAS SUCCESS

The latest report from the Consumer Codes Approval Scheme (CCAS) reveals that the scheme now has almost 80,000 business members and has helped to recover more than £3.5m for consumers in 2021.

That represents a rise of £1.5m over the previously reported figure. The CCAS scheme is estimated to protect £113bn in consumer spending annually.

CTSI APPOINTMENTS

CTSI has appointed Riyad Islam and Duncan Stephenson as Director of Finance and Corporate Services and Director of Policy and Public Affairs, respectively.

(For Duncan Stephenson's Policy column, see page 28).

| 11

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

Upfront

VOICES FROM THE FRONT LINE

EMMA COOKE

CTSI JOINT LEAD OFFICER FOR PROPERTY & LETTINGS; NTSELAT POLICY & INFORMATION MANAGER What has been your main area of focus over the past six months?

For the past six months – indeed over the past two years – my focus has been on improving material information in property listings which are listed on portal websites, agents’ own websites and agent publications. I set up a steering group made up of attendees from the main portals; Rightmove, Zoopla and On The Market, as well as PropertyPal from Northern Ireland. Other steering group members include The CMA, as well as representatives from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

“Collaboration with colleagues in housing and environmental health is crucial”

This project is a game-changer in the industry. It will better protect consumers by giving them information that they need to know, in order to make an informed transactional decision, upfront at the point of listing. This in turn will likely prevent fall-throughs, reduce transaction times and reduce the financial and emotional detriment that they bring to consumers. (For more on the project, see page 30.)

Are there any emerging issues where you are?

There are a variety of projects that the National Trading Standards Estate and Letting Agency Team (NTSELAT) is going to be looking at this coming financial year; they include continuing with Tenant Fees Act training, as well as looking at evolving areas of development in the sector; alternative deposit schemes; rent to rent/ guaranteed rent; and property sourcing agents.

Intelligence is crucial for us; it helps us shape guidance for enforcement officers and industry, as well as helping us feed back to DLUHC to help shape policy and legislation going forward.

We have announced two operation names for work relating to alternative deposit schemes and rent to rent: Operation Ceres relates to alternative deposit schemes and Operation Pluto relates to rent to rent. I would love for officers to keep an eye and

ear out for complaints relating to these areas and to record it onto IDB, or even contact our team directly at estate.agency@powys. gov.uk, using the respective operation names so that we can gather as much evidence as possible.

Our team is looking to continue with our webinars this financial year, which have been positively received and cover a variety of topics and legislation. We also have our Khub group which has close to 1,000 members.

We are always looking at the bigger picture, analysing data from multiple sources, keeping up to speed with legislative development and consultation.

We endeavour to pass this information on to our colleagues, whether they be in trading standards, environmental health or housing.

What are the obstacles to tackling these issues?

Knowledge of, and confidence in, enforcing legislation can be a problem. Capacity can also be a problem – local authorities are being asked to do more with less.

Authorities need to ensure that their enforcement policy is up to date and regularly reviewed, and that legislation requirements match authorisations. However, collaboration with colleagues in housing and environmental health is crucial. Without joined-up working and improved communication,

Property listings, unsafe imports, metrology training and illicit tobacco are among some of the issues being tackled by trading standards across the country.

RICHARD KNIGHT

SPECIALIST TRADING STANDARDS OFFICER (PRODUCT SAFETY), ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL What has been your main area of focus over the past six months?

I have been focused on the ongoing management of Essex’s part in the OPSS Product Safety at Ports and Borders programme, concentrating on preventing unsafe and non-compliant products entering the UK market via Stansted Airport freight hubs. It’s the work I am most proud of in Essex that makes a difference nationally.

For ‘inland’ work, I’ve played my part in East of England (EETSA) market surveillance projects on the safety of eScooters and telescopic ladders, with both initiatives leading to product recalls and withdrawals from the market. In the case of telescopic ladders, I worked with our EETSA Chair in liaising with The Ladder Association, OPSS and HSE in contributing to a joint report that draws on evidence of widespread non-compliance.

consumers can be let down.

12 |

Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

Are there any emerging issues where you are?

I am noticing a concerning rise in local reports of under-age sales of disposable vapes. These environmentally unfriendly electronic nicotine inhaling products are cheap relative to tobacco, appeal to younger people, and can pack a punch in terms of nicotine content. In addition there are a lot of non-compliant variants about that don’t meet the strict regulatory rules that apply to them.

“A focus on the oil and coal industry is extremely important at a time of unprecedented price hikes”

JUDITH GOUGH

AREA INSPECTOR, NORTHERN IRELAND TRADING STANDARDS SERVICE

What are the obstacles to tackling these issues?

Local human resources are always a challenge for us when planning to tackle any issues such as disposable vapes that compete with other policy areas needing our attention. OPSS support in the form of training, information sharing infrastructure (e.g. the PSD), and funding for product testing are all welcome, but none of these things tackle head-on a lack of trained personnel on the ground in local authorities.

In terms of disposable vapes I would like to see a greater effort

by OPSS to target these products at the border to remove more illegal devices at point of entry, so that LATSS aren’t reduced to chasing them at corner shop level, and then having to trace back to importers. Regionally in our EETSA Product Safety Group we are considering a safety project in this area later in the year.

What has been your main area of focus over the past six months?

We have recently recruited nine Trainee Trading Standards Inspectors. As part of their training they must complete the Laboratory Equipment – Metrology module, which is specifically for NI candidates. As the Area Inspector of the UKAS Accredited Mass Calibration Laboratory it has been my responsibility to mentor them throughout this module and organise the practical elements of their training. I have also taken on the role as assessor of the Lab Module portfolio, providing feedback regularly to the trainees.

This is the first year of the module and it has been a learning curve for myself as well as the Area Inspector and Deputy Chief Inspector in charge of the trainees.

I see this module as an exciting opportunity to develop expertise in the laboratory environment and help improve the service we provide to our customers.

“I would like to see a greater effort by OPSS to target these products at the border”

Are there any emerging issues where you are?

The cost-of-living crisis has raised a number of issues for the Trading Standards Service, particularly

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

relating to metrology matters within the energy sector. A large proportion of consumers within Northern Ireland have oil-fired central heating, as well as a high number using fires as a secondary heating source. Therefore a focus on the oil and coal industry is extremely important to ensure consumers are protected at a time of unprecedented price hikes across the market.

As a result, a major focus for our service going forward is pro-active work relating to the accuracy of deliveries, clear and transparent pricing practices, and ensuring compliance in relation to pre-packed goods. With increasing prices for consumers across various sectors, more and more issues will likely emerge.

What are the obstacles to tackling these issues?

Our major obstacle is the number of qualified Inspectors able to carry out metrology work.

Although we are in an excellent position with the addition of new trainees, it will be a while before they are fully qualified and can carry out this work independently.

However, this pro-active work and the number of metrology projects for the year ahead presents great learning opportunities.

Legal Metrology will continue to be a big focus in NI due to Brexit, the NI Protocol and the divergence between NI and GB.

MOHAMMED TARIQ

SENIOR TRADING STANDARDS OFFICER, EALING COUNCIL TRADING STANDARDS What has been your main area of focus over the past six months?

Importation and supply of unsafe and counterfeit goods and consumer fraud have been the main area of focus. Ealing Trading Standards Officers were Involved in Operation CeCe with tobacco detection dogs for the seizure of illicit tobacco, and Operation Flash, which is a self-storage project. (See more on page 10).

Are there any emerging issues where you are?

We have seen a trend in referrals regarding unsafe vape products, along with the importation of counterfeit goods such as mobile phone accessories and household items. Dishonest traders will seek to exploit consumers when such goods are in great demand.

What are the obstacles to tackling these issues?

Staffing and resources are always an obstacle, but this does not stop our Officers, who continue to work tirelessly to protect the public and will not hesitate in prosecuting anyone selling illegal items as part of our commitment to making Ealing safer.

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Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

Upfront

A lifelong ally The extent to which Trading Standards’ activities intersect with the lives of ordinary citizens across the UK is probably not appreciated by most people. Indeed, many will never realise how the behind-the-scenes work of Trading Standards has prevented them from being harmed by a dangerous product, ripped off by an unfair business practice or targeted by a scammer.

But by viewing the work of Trading Standards within the context of an average consumer’s lifetime, it becomes clear that in an extraordinary variety of ways, Trading Standards is there to support, protect and assist people at every step of their journey.

Infancy and childhood

Adolescence

Young adulthood

Trading Standards enforces the safety of a wide range of products that could be dangerous to babies and small children, including pushchairs, cots and car seats. Trading Standards departments also work tirelessly to remove unsafe and counterfeit toys from the market and, in recent years, have been instrumental in initiatives, campaigns and enforcement work that prevent children from choking on particularly hazardous items such as button batteries, being exposed to dangerous chemicals such as phthalates, or being strangled by hazards such as blind cords.

To keep older children and teenagers safe, Trading Standards enforces age-restricted sales of products such as solvents, cigarettes and alcohol. In the past year alone, Trading Standards teams have removed more than 13 million illicit cigarettes from the streets, preventing them from getting into the hands of youngsters. Trading Standards also plays an important part of the fight against knife crime, preventing the sale of knives and offensive weapons to under-age consumers. It also ensures that products such as cosmetics and teeth-whitening kits adhere to the proper safety standards.

Trading Standards continues to support and protect people as they venture into larger purchasing decisions such as buying their first car. Trading Standards teams prevent dangerous vehicles from being sold to consumers and ensure that descriptions of vehicles for sale are accurate, and that drivers get their money’s worth at the petrol pump. When a consumer buys their first pint in a pub, Legal Metrology enforcement ensures they are getting exactly the amount they are paying for. And when they get a taxi home at the end of the night, Trading Standards helps enforce laws that ensure they arrive home safely.

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Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards SUMMER 2022

13m

illicit cigarettes removed from the streets by Trading Standards in the past year

230

test purchases for agerestricted products such as knives in 2020-21

27,300 victims of scams were supported by Trading Standards in 2020-2021

£330m 4,600 property damage prevented as a result of Trading Standards actions

(Source: NTS)

businesses selling misdescribed or potentially unsafe food in 2020-2021 (Source: ACTSO)

Starting a family

Middle age

Elderly consumers

If people choose to settle down, Trading Standards enforcement and initiatives, such as the new material information requirements, help ensure they get a fair deal when buying or renting a house. If they decide to have a pet, Trading Standards is there to ensure animals are sold by licensed breeders and cracks down on cruel, illegal practices such as the illicit breeding of puppies. Trading Standards also ensures that the food on families’ tables is safe, accurately described and correctly labelled for allergens, and that animal welfare is front-and-centre of the supply chain.

When people reach a point in life where they might have a bit of extra money to spend or invest, Trading Standards steps in to safeguard them against investment scams and misleading marketing claims. Trading Standards helps holidaymakers get a fair deal on things like package travel and hotel bookings, and is there to support them if things go wrong. And if a consumer is having work done on their home – whether that’s the installation of a new kitchen, repairs to a roof or the purchasing of a renewable heating system – Trading Standards is there to make sure they are not ripped off.

Trading Standards is particularly active in safeguarding society’s most vulnerable. This includes activities such as cracking down on scammers, coldcallers and rogue traders who target the elderly – and ensuring they are brought to justice. Trading Standards has promoted the use of assured trader schemes and devices like call blockers to screen nuisance phonecalls.

Trading Standards also works to ensure that care homes are operated to the high standards expected, and that consumers are treated with fairness, respect and dignity as they approach the end of their lives.

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

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Matt Allwright

Matt Allwright

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

Feeling the squeeze Soaring energy bills and grocery costs… plummeting funding for services that keep consumers safe… surely something has to give, says Matt Allwright

I think many of us have been watching the dashboard for years under a variety of governments and hoping that none of these things spike at the same time

Summer 2022

One of the more satisfying YouTube rabbit holes you can enter is the world of stress-testing. There you’ll find clip after clip of machinery and materials being pushed to breaking point, then suddenly snapping, exploding, tearing and shattering. What makes it compulsive viewing are the moments spent in anticipation of the big finish. It’s like turning the handle of a deadly jack-in-the-box as you sit, wide-eyed, asking just how much pressure the subject can withstand before it finally gives in.

In a much less thrilling way, it feels like we are sweating it out in the middle of an extreme testing clip for UK consumers. The difference? Well, among our parameters now are the cost of living, public spending cuts and a housing crisis – and few will have the luxury of sitting back and spectating. I think many of us have been watching the dashboard for years under a variety of governments and hoping that none of these things spike at the same time. We’ve watched personal debt reach a new peak, rents spiral, the average house price/annual income ratio nudge double figures, and prayed that interest rates stay low. We’ve seen historically low food prices help families feed themselves while on capped benefits and thanked goodness that supermarkets could at least give us that.

In reality, there have been large numbers of people who have struggled throughout, but perhaps not in those demographics whose voices are regularly heard. There has been pain, but at the extremities, and so easier to ignore.

The test we’re about to go through may be less choosy.

Energy bills are a good example. Taking your annual bill and nearly doubling it, as we may see by the end of the year for most households, isn’t going to leave many

unaffected, and a huge number will be faced with fairly desperate choices.

The problem for us as a community tasked with protecting people is that the resources available have also been diminished. When a text scam designed to exploit confusion over the council tax rebate hits millions of consumers’ phones, how are one- and two-person teams supposed to tell them the danger they’re in, let alone investigate and prosecute the perpetrators?

As food prices soar and people start sourcing cheaper, perhaps riskier alternatives, where are the public health labs which will analyse what we eat, identify and communicate the danger? When a figure as influential as Martin Lewis admits that he’s out of tools to help, what hope is there for those who don’t have the Chancellor’s ear, or the power to communicate with millions?

Unless the forecasts are way off, our tensile strength to help is going to be tested to breaking point over the next couple of years. If we can’t help everyone, we must at least make sure that the message gets through to the highest levels: our capacity to protect consumers shouldn’t be based on what’s needed in the good times. It’s got to be measured by what happens when things get tough, because that’s when we can make the biggest difference to people’s lives. n

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Cover Story

By Helen Nugent

PRESSURE

POINTS

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Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards

The spiralling cost of living has been at the forefront of many people’s minds over the past few months, and is set to remain so for some time. But what does it mean for consumer protection?

Helen Nugent speaks with Trading Standards experts about how the crisis could lead to an uptick in illegal money lending, investment scams, home energy woes and food safety problems Hardly a day seems to go by without more gloomy economic data and new fears over the impact of the cost-of-living crisis. As if the challenge of a worldwide pandemic wasn’t enough, now consumers and businesses must contend with soaring living costs and rising prices.

The past few months have seen a raft of unwelcome developments. According to the Office for National Statistics, almost 90% of British households experienced an increase in the cost of living in March, as food, energy and borrowing prices rose. In April, the cap on household energy bills went up by a staggering 54% and National Insurance contributions increased by 1.25 percentage points. A month earlier, inflation reached 7%, a rate not seen since 1992. Meanwhile, fuel prices are at record highs. According to the New Economics Foundation, as many as 23.5 million people in the UK will be unable to afford the cost of living this year.

Not surprisingly, all of this has major implications for consumer protection, and will undoubtedly stretch the already slimmed-down resources that Trading Standards relies upon.

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CTSI Chief Executive, John Herriman, says: “The cost-of-living crisis risks a significant rise in consumer detriment that the UK has not seen for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic warned us about the depths some will sink to through the scams that emerged out of it. For the unscrupulous, crises are opportunities to make a dishonest profit from the most vulnerable.

“Local Trading Standards services, working in partnership with other agencies, have continually risen to the challenges of protecting consumers, but this has become increasingly difficult after funding cuts of 50% over the past decade. Gaps in consumer protection are emerging, and while Trading Standards professionals are doing their utmost to

GAPS IN CONSUMER PROTECTION ARE EMERGING, AND WE ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED LEVELS OF RISK

protect the public, we are worried about the potential for significantly increased levels of risk.”

In April, ministers announced a number of reforms to consumer protection, including making it illegal to pay someone to write or host a fake review and stopping so-called ‘subscription traps’.

Herriman welcomes the proposals but warns that “we are sadly seeing a return of doorstep selling since pandemic restrictions were removed. We expect a rise in fake money-saving deals offered on energy prices and many other scams.

The proposed reforms will address some of this but not all, and there is a need for effective funding at all levels of the consumer protection system, from national to local.”

Illegal money lending In the meantime, officers are doing their utmost to tackle the issues that fall across their desks. Tony Quigley is Head of the England Illegal Money Lending Team (IMLT). As a unit, the IMLT has prosecuted illegal lenders for a variety of offences, from blackmail, intimidation and wounding to assault, kidnapping and even rape. Since the team’s inception, it has prosecuted more than 400 cases.

Now it is seeing lenders moving to conventional social media platforms.

Quigley says: “The biggest reason for using an illegal lender is everyday expenses. It’s not chaotic lifestyles.

Generally speaking, it’s something happening that sends you over the edge.

As a result of that, you’ll see people use illegal lenders because it’s easy.

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Cover Story

By Helen Nugent

“We know there are three reasons why people use illegal lenders: the decision is instant, the cash is instant, and there’s no paperwork.”

Quigley says that the cost-of-living crisis may mean that people who wouldn’t normally resort to using an underground lender may fall into that category. But it could be some time before Trading Standards teams become aware of their situation.

“What we tend to find is that it takes people about two and a half years to report illegal lending. The reason behind that is because, initially, when you get a relationship with a lender that relationship comes across as a friendship.

They’re all smiley and happy. Then you start to get into difficulties and that’s when you see the real side of them.”

A recent report by the Centre for Social Justice called ‘Swimming with Sharks’ used data from the IMLT to explore where and how illegal lending occurs.

It estimated that more than one million people could be borrowing from one of these lenders. It also found that almost two-thirds of victims in 2021 earned less than £20,000 a year.

Quigley says he and his colleagues take an holistic approach to their work.

“It’s not just the intervention which is the enforcement element, we also bring in support from local agencies to help and assist individuals in their need.

“One of the key things is that if you’ve got a debt to an illegal lender then it’s not enforceable in law so, once we intervene, in essence the debt is wiped out. They don’t continue because, ultimately, they’re under the spotlight now. What does happen, of course, is that it means the individual has got that money and it becomes controlled by them. So, they can start paying into their everyday household bills.”

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Home energy Of all the rises in domestic bills, the new energy price cap is one of the most severe. The increase in the cap means that, for a typical household paying by Direct Debit, the average annual energy bill has rocketed by £693 and now stands at £1,971. For prepay customers, that equates to a rise of £708, taking the yearly figure to £2,017.

Steve Playle, CTSI Lead Officer for Energy and Smart Meters, says: “That’s the situation we’re in now but it’s going to get worse because energy prices are predicted to go up even further in October when the price cap goes up again.

You’ve got a choice: you either don’t heat your home or you try and install some measures which you are told will save the day. If you do install some additional measures then you need to think it through very carefully and think about any knock-on effects. There’s no quick fix for this issue.”

Needless to say, fraudsters are quick to take advantage of people struggling to pay the bills.

“We’ve got a perfect storm for scammers because we’ve got energy

Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards

prices going through the roof and food prices are going up,” says Playle. “So, I would say that people are even more vulnerable to a knock on the door or a phone call from someone claiming that they can cut their energy consumption.”

While the National Trading Standards Intelligence Team keeps an eye on complaints, looking for early signs that someone is operating in an illegal way, resources aren’t commensurate with the scale of the challenge at both national and local level.

“There’s only a certain amount of work that Trading Standards can do.

Unless we get to the stage where you ban cold-calling, either on the phone or by knocking on the door, then there’s always going to be someone out there who’s looking to make some money from other

WE’VE GOT A PERFECT STORM FOR SCAMMERS BECAUSE WE’VE GOT ENERGY PRICES GOING THROUGH THE ROOF AND FOOD PRICES ARE GOING UP www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

people’s misfortune and the fact that they can’t make ends meet,” says Playle.

So, what are the practical obstacles facing Trading Standards when it comes to protecting consumers?

“There are successes, but I know from my own experience that taking a prosecution case against a fraudulent company where there may be three or four defendants and 20 or 30 witnesses, those cases can take three or four years to get through court, cost hundreds of thousands of pounds in officer time and in court and legal fees, and Trading Standards doesn’t always get its costs back,” says Playle.

“I’m coming round to the view, and this is a personal view, that we should be doing far more disruption rather than doing prosecution.

“I’m a big fan of when you get that first complaint through where you think ‘this isn’t quite right, something needs to happen,’ you go and confront that trader straightaway and find out exactly what their business plan is and what they’re doing. Don’t let them carry on for 18 months and build up a head of complaints and then decide to take a prosecution

| 21

Cover Story

By Helen Nugent

because by then it’s too late. We need to be reactive and disruptive as quickly as possible.”

Fraud and scams As the cost of living climbs, many people will seek out ways of maximising their existing assets so they go as far as possible. In some cases, this is likely to involve resorting to online investment platforms – which in many cases are poorly considered get-rich-quick schemes.

City of London Trading Standards Officer Karen Tillett says that, as more people go online, investment fraud is a growing problem.

“The fraudsters seem to be moving away slightly from the approach of cold-calling and more into search optimisation. When you ask people, ‘how did you become aware of this,’ quite a few people we speak to say ‘oh, I searched Google and a particular company came up’ rather than they were called by someone. That lulls them into even more of a sense of security because they feel that they’ve found it,” says Tillett.

When it comes to addressing investment fraud, Operation Broadway has had an impact. The initiative from City of London Trading Standards and various other agencies raises awareness of scams and provides advice.

Fraud involving cryptocurrency is the most prolific type. In this situation, consumers tend to set up an account but are unaware that fraudsters are operating it on their behalf. At first, the account increases in value but, as it grows further, the scammers swoop in.

Tillett says: “Very few people have a true understanding of cryptocurrencies.

Of course, the prevailing economic conditions feed into this with prices rising all the time, and returns on savings are practically nothing at the moment. People

22 |

want to try and find ways to make their money go further… I think the cost-ofliving crisis will increase financial fraud.

People will get increasingly desperate to do more with their money.”

Tillett says that, at one time, most victims of investment fraud were older people. Now, because the fraudsters are using channels like WhatsApp and Instagram, younger people are being targeted. What can Trading Standards do to stamp down on this?

“The problem is that no one, either ourselves or the police, has got the resources to take all these people to court or even the ability to do so if they’re not UK-based or their website isn’t UKbased,” says Tillett. “But, as soon as a name comes up, we start an investigation to look into that company to see whether they’re making any false claims on their website and, if so, then try to get that website taken down. With the UK sites it’s generally possible but with some of the others, especially ones hosted in America, that can be more tricky.”

Tillett adds: “Our idea is to try and prevent other people from accessing these websites. We don’t wait for a huge number

of complaints to come in. If there’s one or two where we find false claims then we will try and take that down. The thing that is most frustrating in terms of being in enforcement is that people do their homework after they’ve spent their money.”

Food safety Of course, the climbing cost of living hasn’t just affected consumers, as David Pickering, CTSI Joint Lead Officer for Food Standards, explains: “Food businesses are facing rising costs. And the food supply chain is increasingly under pressure in a number of ways.

“It opens up the possibilities for some businesses who are less scrupulous to maybe look at substitution, look at cheaper ingredients, and not indicate to people that that’s what they are. So, as well as the quality issue you have also potentially got the consumer safety aspect of it because sometimes the substituted ingredients have allergy issues, and some allergies can have fatal consequences.”

He continues: “Unfortunately, the people who do this know what they’re doing and make it difficult for someone to tell that something has been changed.

Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards

IT’S A VERY, VERY DIFFICULT SITUATION FOR TRADING STANDARDS ACROSS THE UK BECAUSE WE ARE STUCK WITH A RESOURCE CRISIS WITHOUT A DOUBT

Certainly, with the substitution of lower quality and cheaper ingredients, unless there is some kind of allergy component that causes an immediate impact, it’s hard to tell. And even with people’s allergies, they don’t always show up straightaway.”

Pickering says that, in terms of safeguarding food safety, the role of Trading Standards is to use information and intelligence to look at businesses which are potentially using the cost-ofliving crisis to gain an economic advantage but also to mislead consumers in what they’re selling. “It’s any food business that can influence what the food is,” he says.

“If you have got a food sampling budget, and that is an issue for local authorities, it’s thinking about how to best use that to help consumers.”

How important is the role of Trading Standards in protecting high standards of food safety? “It’s about getting that balance between not, in the eyes of some people, being overzealous but at the same time protecting consumers and protecting the legitimate businesses as well. It’s a double-edged thing where we want legitimate businesses to thrive but in order to do that we will have to do

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some regulatory work with legitimate businesses.”

Doorstep crime Katherine Hart is CTSI Lead Officer for doorstep crime and scams. She thinks that the full implications of the rising cost of living won’t emerge until a couple of years down the line. “People are being pushed and squeezed now but I think we’ll see future consequences.”

Hart says that officers are facing a number of challenges, including scammers and rogue traders offering a quick, cheap fix – whether that’s home insulation, roof repairs, draught-proofing or myriad other things.

“We’ve still got the COVID scams that are out there but we’ve also got the energy scams. We have a problem where a lot of legitimate traders are tied up with a backlog from the last couple of years. While we as Trading Standards professionals encourage people to go and use a reputable tradesperson, we’re finding that those reputable traders are too busy.

Therefore, consumers are cutting corners.

“So, the scams we’re seeing just now are very much about people offering

quick fixes. What we’re also going to see are the online scams that will offer to save you money or offer a grant. So not only do you have physical doorstep crime, you’ve also got the online crime.

“I’ve seen a surge of energy texts saying that people can save money or government grants are available if you click on this link. At the end of the day, it’s banking data harvesting. It’s the same scams you see left, right and centre.”

Hart believes that different agencies need to work together to develop more consistent and regular messaging that won’t confuse the consumer. “It can be very difficult to strike that balance. At the same time, we cannot be frightened about taking enforcement action where appropriate. I think that’s the other thing we struggle with at the moment because of the resources.

“Scammers will try and exploit the fact that people want grants, they want help.

I find it incredible how quickly they can react and how slow we are behind them sometimes. It’s not our fault, it’s just that the technology and the resources that the scammers have go far beyond the resources of local authorities.

“It’s a very, very difficult situation for Trading Standards across the UK because we are stuck with a resource crisis without a doubt. But we do try and keep consumers informed as much as we can.

We use the tools that are available and we do, at this point in time, have a really good relationship with the media who come to us regularly.” ■

| 23

Think Piece

Recognising the real impact of Trading Standards Consumer confidence has been on a steady decline, with things only set to get worse. What role does Trading Standards play in giving the economy a jump-start?

John Herriman

CTSI Chief Executive

We have to recognise that for the system to operate effectively it needs all the components – national, regional and local – to work together

24 |

In many of my conversations with those outside of Trading Standards there is often a narrow and seemingly stereotypical view of the work of the profession. That is a view of the role being solely about enforcement activity. The reality as we know is very different, with many Trading Standards services pushing a much broader and very successful prevention agenda tuned into their Local Authority’s needs. And we must not forget the role of Trading Standards professionals who are working in other sectors, from Government through to private business and not-for-profit, all driving the consumer protection mission and purpose.

I think the role of Trading Standards is still underplayed because ultimately we help to ensure the consumer confidence that is critical to the success of the UK economy which, as we all know, is built on consumer behaviour. This was brought into sharp focus recently with the publication of the Government’s Consumer Confidence Survey. Produced every three years, this one being 2020-21, it showed consumer detriment was at a staggering £54.2bn, up by £4bn on the previous survey. The harsh reality is that since this survey was completed the economic situation has become more challenging and consumers have been facing even greater risks. The likelihood is that consumer detriment must now therefore be running at an even higher figure, all of which impacts on consumer confidence.

It has been interesting to see over the past few weeks a building narrative in the media about falling levels of consumer confidence. This is based on the very obvious cost-of-living crisis where prices of essentials have rocketed. It is also down to product and service availability, evidenced by flight cancellations for example, as well as increasing levels of concern about rising interest rates. Levels of confidence in April, according to researcher GfK, fell for the fifth month running, and the YouGov/CEBR Consumer Confidence Index has reported similar declines. The importance of this is that consumer confidence has been steadily falling for months and is now at its lowest level since the 2008 crisis according to GfK. What we have also just seen, as reported by the CMA, is that households are now being hit by the impact of reduced competition. The end result is that that companies that are being ineffectively regulated are marking up prices by as much as 35% with little or no consequence to their actions. The CMA is flagging a concentrating of markets with fewer providers, from energy through to other essential services, that have a particularly hard impact on the most vulnerable and poorest in society. This is a group that has already been hit by the longer-term social and economic consequences of the pandemic, so the new challenges add another layer of pain for them to deal with.

We also know that in times of economic crisis the likelihood of risk to consumers increases and we are seeing it now.

Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards

Trading Standards professionals know consumer behaviour better than anyone because they deal with the impacts of harm on a daily basis, as well as supporting legitimate business as they seek to ensure their customers are protected – what is good for consumers is also good for business.

Trading Standards professionals operate at every level in every layer of the system protecting consumers, from frontline services to regional coordination and both national and devolved nation level. That is alongside those Trading Standards professionals who work in business and the not-for-profit sectors.

This collective group, bound by the single social purpose to protect the public, have faced increasing challenges to the regulatory world they operate in but have stayed true to their mission regardless.

It is of course this layered defence system, made up of consumer protection professionals protecting consumers, that we are reflecting in our new Vision for CTSI. In this we recognise that in a complex and dynamic consumer protection landscape it has never been more important to have a strong professional body that is able to support members representing every facet of

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

the work of Trading Standards. Now is also the time, with falling consumer confidence, when they are really needed and Government should be placing greater emphasis on the collective critical role they play.

Joined-up thinking As we look to the future and seek to build a consumer protection system that is world leading post-EU Exit, we have to recognise that for the system to operate effectively it needs all the components – national, regional and local – to work together. We must also recognise that when one element is unable to the others will be less effective too – the national cannot work without the local. Of course, our role in Trading Standards will not cover all the issues affecting consumer confidence such as price rises or shortage of goods, but we do play an absolutely critical role protecting consumers from everything from product safety through to scams.

Against this backdrop the recent Government response to the Command Paper was good at one level, because it seeks to bring the law up to date for e-commerce and to give increased powers to the CMA as well as other positive

change such as increasing the impact of administrative schemes and support for business to protect customers. All of these represent progress and will provide better redress for consumers, which should in turn help to protect consumer confidence.

The Command Paper response was less effective however – in fact it was somewhat underwhelming – in dealing with what happens at the regional and local level, especially after a decade of funding cuts. It naively assumes that the administrative and other mechanisms it proposes will deal with the increasing issues consumers face there. They won’t.

Nor did it respond to calls from business membership organisations like the BRC for the need for increased local Trading Standards activity to ensure a level playing field for businesses.

Protecting consumers at the local, regional and devolved nation level happens as a result of the interplay of all of the different layers of the consumer protection eco-system operating across all sectors. However, one thing is certain: it needs well-resourced and sustainable frontline Trading Standards services.

We now also know what can happen when the Trading Standards resources are put in place, as evidenced in Northern Ireland, which has seen an increase in capacity as a result of the Northern Ireland Protocol. As a result, consumers have realised they now have more effective redress and are increasingly reporting the increasing harms they face.

This in turn means Trading Standards teams are able to tackle them, which in turn leads to increased consumer confidence. This is proof, if it were ever needed, that the model works very effectively when it is given the right support. It also indicates what we need to apply elsewhere, because the rising risks facing consumers in Northern Ireland are likely to be representative of those faced by consumers in England, Scotland and Wales as well. n

| 25

Toy safety

By Richard Young

Not playing around An investigation by Salford Trading Standards into a business selling dangerous and counterfeit toys, despite having a previous conviction, proves the value of persistence “We’re there to ensure that businesses are trading legally, and we’re also there to support businesses. But if businesses are negligent and show a lack of due diligence and care in their approach to safety and legal compliance, then we do take robust action against them,” says Timothy Cook, Trading Standards & Licensing Manager at Salford City Council.

It’s a lesson learned the hard way by a Salford business which was found to be selling dangerous and counterfeit toys that put children at risk.

NewLine Imports Ltd is located in an area of Salford known for its high concentration of wholesale and distribution businesses. Marsha Bell, Trading Standards Officer at Salford City Council, who led the investigation, explains. “I was tasked with identifying issues within that area because we had not been there for a little while; it was a case of going in and seeing what was there. We visited about 10 businesses over a couple of months towards the end of 2019. We made seizures from pretty much all of them, including NewLine.

In total 3,387 items were removed during the raid on October 30 2019, after which representatives of brands including LOL Surprise, My Little Pony, Marvel and Disney confirmed the items seized were counterfeit and breached trademark,

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copyright and design laws. In addition to infringement of intellectual property rights, concerns were also raised about the toys’ safety.

“We sent quite a few samples off for testing and identified that some of the products contained phthalates,” says Bell.

Phthalates are chemicals found in plastic which have been linked to health problems. There are legal limits on the amounts which should be included in products and the items seized from NewLine were found to be 30.56% above those limits.

Salford Trading Standards provided NewLine with extensive advice on safety rules and legal requirements, but upon returning to the business in April 2020, Bell and her team found 34 more empty boxes of the toys that had contained excess phthalates – meaning 204 potentially dangerous toys had been sold and, due to a lack of paperwork, remained unaccounted for. “Obviously we advised them to do a recall,” says Bell. “But this trader didn’t do much.”

Repeat offender NewLine’s director, Sarabjot Singh, was no stranger to Trading Standards; his former company, Best Line Imports, had been prosecuted in 2014 for Trading Standards offences when officers seized

more than 1,000 toys, some of which posed a choking hazard. NewLine was importing up to 15 containers of toys a year from China, worth between £800,000 and £900,000.

“We had dealings with this business in the past, under another name,” says Bell.

“But the director was the same.”

When he appeared at Manchester and Salford Magistrates Court on March 21 2022, Singh pleaded guilty, on behalf of himself and NewLine, to 19 offences of possessing counterfeit toys contrary to the Trade Marks Act 1994.

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“We use the intelligence information available, and we do take proactive project work as well”

The company was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £6,160.

Singh received a Community Order for 24 months with 280 hours unpaid work and a rehabilitation activity requirement of 10 hours. He was disqualified from being a director for three years and was ordered to pay costs of £6,160. A forfeiture order was also made for all the seized goods.

When interviewed under caution in September 2020, Singh said NewLine imported some items directly from China while others had been bought in the UK from a company recommended by his Chinese suppliers. No checks were made before items were purchased and later checks on the UK company found its details were false.

Singh said he could provide test reports for the products but failed to produce any. He also claimed he did not

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realise some of the seized items were trademarked.

Cook says the case proves the importance of Trading Standards following through on the advice and support they offer businesses with consistent and robust enforcement when their message is being ignored.

“With this business, the head office is located in Manchester. One of the officers from Manchester Trading Standards provided a Section 9 statement to say that NewLine had been advised, and in particular, they had been advised on pthalates. So the company was fully aware of the risks of having chemicals in plastics.

“This was a staged approach where we’d issued advice; we’d issued a caution previously to the director; he’d been prosecuted once; and now he’s been prosecuted a second time under his new

company, and has been disqualified from being a director.

Like all Trading Standards departments across the country, the Salford team have to make the best use of the resources at their disposal. “Of course, resources are scarce,” says Cook. “But we use the intelligence information available, and we do take proactive project work as well. We undertake repeat visits and we’ve got quite a good handle on established businesses in that area. And of course, we’re always keeping an eye on incoming information, complaints intelligence for new businesses.”

According to Detective Chief Inspector Claire McGuire of Greater Manchester Police’s Organised Crime Coordination Unit, which works alongside Salford Trading Standards, “Selling counterfeit items can have serious consequences.

As was shown in this case, toys for young children were tested and were found to have excess levels of chemicals that may cause serious harm.

“The effective partnership work between our officers and Salford City Council means that potentially harmful goods have been taken from our streets.

I hope this serves as a warning to any businesses operating in a similar way, that it will not go unnoticed and our officers will continue to take enforcement action against those who put others at risk by selling counterfeit goods. ” n

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Think Piece

A new voice for Trading Standards CTSI’s new policy chief talks about looking forward to working with staff, membership and wider stakeholders to help further grow and develop the voice and influence of the Institute

Duncan Stephenson Director of Policy and Public Affairs, CTSI

Many of the Government’s future priorities are predicated on a buoyant economy, thriving business sector and consumer confidence

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I am delighted to have recently joined CTSI as the new Director of Policy and Public Affairs. Right now, I have a steep, but very interesting, learning curve ahead of me as I get to understand some of the major issues facing the Trading Standards profession and more broadly, the consumer protection landscape. It is a fascinating area, and one of the attractions of this role and CTSI is the multiplicity of different issues it confronts.

My background is policy, campaigns and communications and I’ve worked for two national membership bodies.

In my previous role at the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) as Director of External Affairs, where my remit was to build the voice and profile, and help to modernise the 160-year-old public health membership body.

Over seven years I helped to transform the profile of RSPH, largely by establishing evidence-based policies, building strategic partnerships and creatively campaigning to achieve changes to legislation and practice to improve the public’s health, across a range of subject areas. Successes included securing numerous Government commitments to tackle obesity,

influencing legislation to address the harms from gambling, and influencing the Government’s White Paper and subsequent Online Harms Bill.

Overlapping priorities Moving across from the world of public health to trading standards and consumer protection, I am struck by the many similarities between the two areas.

Both have similar historic roots in Local Government, with much of the legislation that underpins each discipline originating during the Victorian age. Both encompass a wide spectrum of topics and accompanying this, a very complex stakeholder landscape – not just on specific issues, but the wider systems in which both operate. Like public health, trading standards has a natural home in Local Government, although the work cuts across many different Government departments. Both trading standards and public health have also faced significant funding cuts over the past decade. Such funding cuts are often false economies, as many of the (arguably avoidable) national calamities we have faced over recent years, ranging from the horsemeat scandal to foot-and-mouth, bear witness.

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My arrival at CTSI is very timely. Many of the Government’s future priorities are predicated on a buoyant economy, thriving business sector and consumer confidence. Having an effective and supported Trading Standards profession will be critical in realising this vision.

In the week that I joined, the Government published its plan to reform competition and consumer protection laws. This included some welcome measures to strengthen national structures such as the Competition and Markets Authority – although it is of some concern that there was less detail on what support will be available at the local level.

Also published the same day as the proposed legislative reforms were the findings from the Government’s Consumer Protection study, which revealed the breath-taking financial costs of consumer detriment to wider society. At more than £50bn annually (not that far short of half the NHS annual budget) this is a stark reminder of why trading standards matters and why

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greater support is needed to ensure that consumers are protected and businesses get the right advice. Given that this detriment is likely to get worse in the years ahead, amplified by the cost-of-living crisis, greater support will be needed, particularly for our most vulnerable consumers.

My arrival at CTSI is also timely given the organisation’s bold 10-year Vision and Strategy which, amongst other priorities, includes an ambition for CTSI to remain a trusted voice and to develop evidencebased policies and campaigns.

Leading the conversation Within that context, how do I hope to shape CTSI’s policy and public affairs work? In the short term I am really looking forward to working with the members to find out from them what they think are the priority issues for CTSI, and also how we can work together. I am keen for CTSI to be at the vanguard and to identify new and emerging issues as well as campaigning on key priorities that

will benefit both consumers and business alike. At RSPH I successfully developed campaigns which were closely informed by members who also advocated for us, and hope that we can establish a similar modus operandi.

One of my first priorities will be to develop CTSI’s policy framework, which will be critical in helping us determine which areas we will prioritise and focus on. The result will be a number of broad thematic areas which will provide a clear narrative and will help communicate to key audiences including the media, stakeholders and public, what the Institute’s policy priorities are.

Underneath each of these broad areas will be specific policy and campaigns activities.

Another important priority will be building the evidence base to support our policy and campaigns work. The views and expertise of our membership will be fundamentally important, as will our ability to call upon other sources of research, including input from expert stakeholders and the general public. In my previous role I focused on championing the public’s health – ensuring that much of what we did was not only supported by the evidence, but also had the voice of the public included. In developing CTSI as an independent voice for consumer protection it is important that where appropriate we also include the voice of the consumer. It is also vitally important that we make CTSI’s approach as engaging, creative and distinctive as possible.

In the longer term I hope that this will lead to greater awareness among members, Government, the media and wider stakeholders as to which policy priorities CTSI is focused on. Success would be for CTSI to be at the forefront of influencing and achieving changes to policy and practice which would benefit consumers, businesses and our professionals. Ultimately this will contribute towards supporting CTSI’s vision that the UK prospers economically through fair and safe trade. n

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Property & lettings

by Richard Young

Agents of change

Disclosure of material information has long been a problem in the property sector. Could a collaboration between Trading Standards and the industry address it once and for all?

House-hunting can be fraught with timeconsuming pitfalls and costly dead ends.

Properties that on first viewing appear to be idyllic can sometimes reveal insoluble problems that scupper even the most wellintentioned of deals. For buyers, sellers, tenants and agents alike, that means a great deal of wasted time and money.

To nip the problem in the bud, the NTS Estate and Lettings Agency Team (NTSELAT) has spearheaded a project that encourages property agents to publish material information upfront on online portals so consumers can make more informed choices.

James Munro, Head of NTSELAT, explains: “We’ve had an issue for many years with the lack of information on property listings. Those with long memories will remember the Property Misdescriptions Act (PMA) of 1991.

That contained a list of things that it would be an offence to give any false or misleading information about. Of course, the key thing was that it only said, ‘if you disclose this information, and it’s then wrong or false or misleading, you could be prosecuted’. So the property industry thought, ‘well, if we don’t say anything, we can’t be had up for it’. Which was essentially true, but ludicrous.”

Following the introduction of the wide-ranging Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs) in 2008, the PMA was repealed on the basis that the CPRs provided more comprehensive protection for renters and homebuyers.

However, the problem of material information disclosure had not gone

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away. “The CPRs don’t require material information to be disclosed – it’s really quite tricky to get your head around this – what they do is they punish non-disclosure,” says Munro. “It’s a very nuanced thing, but it’s a very important distinction.”

That blind spot in the regulations can hit consumers hard. After all, renting a property is a huge financial commitment, buying a property even more so. “A lot of people are very vulnerable, whether they feel like it or not, when they buy or rent a property,” says Munro. “Much of the language used in property transactions is still quite archaic and people don’t really understand much about the process.

When people buy houses, very few do it themselves. In almost all instances, they use the services of a lawyer or conveyancer. That’s quite unusual for consumer transactions.”

According to Which?, the average cost of buying a home in the UK – including survey and conveyancing fees – can amount to more than £6,000. “This is one of those areas where consumers can lose thousands of pounds, almost legitimately,” says Munro. “And often they don’t have the means to complain about it.

“Frankly, there is very poor disclosure of material information, for both sales and lettings, across the whole country,” he adds. “A substantial number of failed transactions are due to something being found out along the line, that if the consumer had been aware of before they viewed the property or commissioned a survey, they wouldn’t have wasted their time or the seller’s time.”

Steering the sector It became clear that collaboration between enforcers and the industry was not only necessary, but mutually beneficial. Munro explains: “Rather than just waiting for agents not to disclose material information, and then punishing them for it, we want to work with and encourage them by working out what exactly constitutes material information, and to help them source and display it on property listings.”

That, however, is easier said than done – not least because the term ‘material information’ can encapsulate so many things. “Property is a really challenging thing to market because every property is unique,” says Munro. “There could be all sorts of construction issues with the property itself; it could be affected by something nearby; there could be an issue with what it was used for in the past.

It might have HS2 running very close to the back garden; it might have Japanese knotweed… all sorts of things that will affect people’s decisions.”

NTSELAT formed a steering group and approached the major property portals, including Rightmove, Zoopla and On The Market, and asked them to get involved.

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One aspect of the project which has yet to be finalised is the inclusion of restrictive covenants in material information. As well as things like public rights of way across a garden, these can include restrictions around using a property for business purposes, or the prohibition of parking of trade vehicles on the driveway. “We are working with the conveyancing associations and the Law Society to try to bring together agents and conveyancers at a much earlier stage and explore any covenants on a property,” says Munro.

The project has already won support from the Government, which is funding

“That was quite a challenge, because naturally they’re fierce competitors – getting them in the same virtual room was a testament to the effectiveness of the project,” says Munro. “We also engaged with PropertyPal (in Northern Ireland) to give a truly UK-wide perspective.”

In addition to the portals themselves, the steering group brought on board software suppliers, industry representatives and redress schemes to establish what ‘material information’ should include. The Competition and Markets Authority was also invited to sit on the steering group because of its extensive work on the mis-selling of leasehold properties.

Material information The steering group came up with three distinct types of material information to be included on property listings.

Part A applies to non-optional financial commitments such as the price of the property or its monthly rent, and council tax. “There are all sorts of issues around mis-advertising of rent, or the tenure of the property,” says Munro. “With leasehold properties come financial commitments

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such as ground rent, service charges and maintenance of shared ownership.”

Part B information relates to a property’s construction, and highlights any issues around insurance and fire protection requirements or cladding. Also included in Part B are utilities; agents must point out non-standard amenities such as septic tanks, private water supplies, or issues such as lack of access to mains electricity or broadband.

Munro points out that for tenants, Part B information relating to a property’s energy efficiency provisions is particularly important. “If you’re renting, you may not be so interested in the fabric of the property, but you have no control over things like the heating system or insulation. So it’s important that you know, for example, if a property is not insulated, because if you’re renting it, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Part C information applies to the area around the property, and takes in factors such as flood risk, coastal erosion and proximity to flight paths. It also includes things like subsidence around former coal mines and restrictions on building within conservation areas.

“Frankly, there is very poor disclosure of material information, for both sales and lettings, across the whole country” its roll-out. It was also highlighted in the recent Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities White Paper.

Part A information began to appear on the property portals in February, and by the end of May it will be required as standard on all property listings.

Parts B and C will then be rolled out in due course.

Emma Cooke, NTSELAT Policy & Information Manager and CTSI Joint Lead Officer for Property, was part of the team that set up the project. “This work is a game changer for the industry and consumers and my passion and dedication to achieving this has never faltered, despite some early setbacks,” she says.

“Making a difference is why we all get out of bed in the morning, and this project has been and will continue to be, one of my many motivations.”

“We see this as a win-win for all parties concerned,” says Munro. “It’s a win for consumers and it’s a win for agents.

It brings benefits for everybody, but it’s going to require a culture change in the industry.” n

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Operation CeCe

By William Henry

IN PLAIN

SIGHT

Illicit cigarette producers and distributors have infiltrated and impacted the UK’s economy, industry, and health. Operation CeCe has brought together a network of groups to stub out the problem Operation CeCe and the HMRC funding it brought with it has been critical in arming Trading Standards Officers in the battle against the illicit cigarette trade. However, that funding is far from adequate; communication lines are lacking between bodies focusing on different parts of the criminal supply chain; and further operative support initiatives are required to make a dent in obstinate illegal enterprises, according to some of those involved in tackling the problem on the ground.

As with many priorities for Trading Standards Officers, a lot of the obstacles come down to money.

“I’ve got an area the size of Lincolnshire to enforce; Operation CeCe provides a little over £2,000 a quarter for illegal tobacco enforcement,” says Andy Wright, Principal Trading Standards Officer at Lincolnshire County Council.

“Basically, what that covers is a couple of test purchases and a day’s inspection with absolutely no follow-up whatsoever.”

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That’s not to say that Operation CeCe and the work done to target illicit cigarettes over the past few years has not brought success. The statistics have been well publicised: over the course of Operation CeCe’s first year, investigators seized 13 million cigarettes and 4,300 kilos of hand-rolling tobacco worth more than £7m in street value. And HMRC is getting value for money, with £8.75 saved in detriment for every £1 spent on Operation CeCe. The problem is size. Through the operation, HMRC has committed to providing £800,000 of funding each year until 2025, with an additional £200,000 committed for the first three months of this year. But the illegal cigarette trade costs UK coffers £2bn annually. It’s a prevalent trade, too: a poll commissioned by the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association (TMA) at the end of last year found that although there has been a drop in smokers admitting to having bought tobacco that was not subject to UK tax in

2021, 71 percent still said they had done so. Just one in five smokers claimed to only buy branded tobacco (i.e. not plain packaged cigarettes or ‘roll your own’).

Some 19 percent of respondents admitted to buying illicit tobacco through social media and more than a third (37 percent) of respondents said they were aware that illicit tobacco is used as a front for other illegal activity (such as people trafficking or modern slavery), yet still buy it.

Even so, a number of success stories have emerged in which Trading Standards has made seizures of note all over the UK.

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“Having that extra funding allows us to be more flexible with our resources,” says Nazir Ali, Principal Trading Standards Officer at London Borough of Barking & Dagenham. “We can do afterhours work and also apply for sniffer dogs (supplied by BWY canine and Wagtail).

Having a dog out for a day costs from £700 upwards, and local authorities cannot afford to have a dog and handler on a regular basis. Having them for project work is really helping us make major breakthroughs in a number of these areas.”

With buyers who are literally addicted to the product though, the motivation for illicit tobacco sellers is strong.

“Clearly the huge amounts of illegal cigarettes and tobacco we see are directly linked to profitability,” says Wright. “It is not uncommon for retailers to be taking more than £1,000 a day. These are organised crime groups and the premises they trade from are set up with the purpose of selling illegal cigarettes.”

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Intricate webs All different types of illegal product are defined by the legislation they contravene. Some products are strictly counterfeit, in that they are produced and packaged illegally. According to Wright, research into these types of cigarettes has found them to contain “markedly higher levels of heavy metals” as well as rat droppings. Another major category of illicit cigarettes is those that are intended to be sold abroad but end up being distributed in the UK, where it is not legal to sell them because their labels omit some details and duty is not charged.

A third type are those that fail ignition propensity testing, with fire service and county coroner investigations concluding that they are a serious cause of injury and death.

A structural problem for police, Trading Standards, and others attempting to combat the illicit cigarette trade is the supply chain. According to some, the best place to intervene is at the point of

importation or manufacturing. It is after these initial stages of the distribution network that large quantities get broken down into increasingly smaller units until they hit the retail level. HMRC is responsible for movement at the earlier stages, with police and Trading Standards taking responsibility as the distribution chain splits off.

“There is an unofficial breakdown of responsibilities, where Trading Standards is supposed to look at illegal cigarettes at retail level,” says Wright. “HMRC looks slightly above that, at manufacturing and that sort of thing. Clearly at retail level is the worst time to intervene; what was one consignment could be broken down and spread across hundreds of retailers.”

The limitations inherent in that framework suggest that a better way to ensure Operation CeCe enjoys further success is by promoting greater communication between the different entities involved. HMRC’s Track and Trace – in which all businesses engaged

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Operation CeCe

By William Henry

in the manufacture, importation or supply of tobacco products in the UK need to report their activities to the system – has reportedly proved successful. The information the Government receives through the system could be put to good use by those working at retail level.

Rupert Lewis, Director of the TMA, is confident that Track and Trace can bring more clarity to the illegal activity currently being investigated by authorities.

“HMRC’s Track and Trace system clearly maps from factory to point of sale all legitimate products in the UK,” he says. “The system is up and running now in its second year and I think HMRC now has a very clear idea around what a legitimate product is in the UK.” For Trading Standards Officers, police are close and proactive allies in the fight against organised crime. HMRC could be circulating information garnered from its work at the top of the chain to better inform those at the retail level, making initiatives like Operation CeCe more effective.

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“I do think we could get more assistance from HMRC as far as intelligence exchange is concerned,” says Wright. “They have unlimited access to our intelligence database, but it’s not a two-way street. Given that Trading Standards is supposed to take the lead at retail level I would expect any intelligence received by HMRC concerning retail to be routinely sent to the relevant department; this doesn’t appear to have ever happened despite agreements setting out that it should.”

the premises we investigate supply illicit cigarettes,” he says. “It’s in particular types of shops,” he adds, “newly opened or reopened establishments, more often than not.”

However, others suggest that Operation CeCe is too focused on the seizure of goods without considering the need for in-depth follow-ups or prosecutions. In the short term, the operation allows for disruption in terms of removing illicit cigarettes from the

Groundwork A central tenet of Operation CeCe is the test purchasing element, in which Trading Standards recruits shop from outlets where complaints have been made or intelligence suggests illicit cigarettes may be on sale. Sniffer dogs are then enlisted to follow up with the investigations. For Ali and his team, this process is where the operation has been most useful.

“If we do 10 visits per day in Barking and Dagenham, at least 50 percent of

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“THAT REPORTING PROCESS CAN BE VERY EFFECTIVE BUT IT NEEDS TO FOLLOW DUE PROCESS” of Crime Act, the landlord assumes a conviction and can be charged for allowing the crime to occur. Wright has used this approach successfully with more than 30 problem premises in Lincolnshire.

“Most [landlords] have evicted tenants as soon as they found out. Some held out until they were interviewed to remove tenants. In all, roughly half have removed problem tenants and there has been no repeat offending from the same premises.

Work is still ongoing with the remaining premises. Aladdin has been the most effective thing that we’ve done,” he says.

marketplace but practically speaking many outlets are capable of trading again almost immediately afterwards.

“What I’ve found with illegal cigarettes is that the tenant (usually running the business) will be named on a tenancy agreement,” says Wright. “We may prosecute the tenant for selling illegal cigarettes, they will then assign that lease on to one of their friends, who then accepts responsibility for the business, so we’ll prosecute him. And then he’ll assign it on to somebody else… And so this goes on forever in some cases.”

Operation Aladdin provides greater longevity in terms of stamping out repeat offenders by holding landlords accountable for a portion of the illegal activity. Wright is an advocate.

He gives the example of a case in which eight different people were prosecuted for the distribution of illegal cigarettes on the same premises over a 12-year period, with each new defendant being a first-time offender. Under Operation Aladdin and the Proceeds

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A step further The illicit tobacco trade has not declined in parallel with the falling number of smokers in the UK over the past two decades. This suggests that education needs to be ramped up, as do enforcement actions and penalties for those found to be involved in the illicit tobacco supply chain.

Proposals have been in draft note format for around two years which would see fixed penalties for possession of illegal cigarettes enforced through county courts. Claims would be civil in nature, made against a business – or its owners – whose premises are found to be used for the sale of illegal tobacco products.

A sliding scale of penalties from £500 to £10,000 would be applied based on an assessment of past offences and the amount of product that is seized. It is understood that the maximum penalty would be “commensurate” with the type of offences seen by Trading Standards officers on a regular basis.

Should the drafts move through the legislature it could be very good news for Trading Standards. Officers need not be involved in the resource- and cost-heavy process of criminal proceedings – rather

they instigate the civil penalties. Better still, the fines are then given back directly to Trading Standards.

“If we were to get a £5,000 penalty that would pay for the enforcement work and the pursuit of the penalty as well. It could almost be like self-financing,” says Wright.

On paper, the suggestions are promising and could work well with Operations Aladdin and CeCe in place.

But they aren’t flawless, as officers would need to go through the difficult process of identifying the head of a business responsible for illegal activity. Separately, they may have responsibility of pursuing payment of the fines even after cases have spent lengthy periods in court.

According to Wright there is talk of moving forward with implementation sometime in 2022.

Fighting networks with networks Without doubt, Operation CeCe has brought a number of enforcement, investigation, and educational teams closer together in combating the illicit cigarette market. While the funding system has created a degree of openness between HMRC and other relevant bodies, greater communication channels could benefit the concerted effort. Information sharing and a better reporting process throughout the investigation and engagement supply chain would only boost the cause.

That conviction could run through the system and involve a greater network of participants.

“Retailers voice their concerns if someone else is selling illicit cigarettes in their area outside their store, in the street or the local pub car park,” says Lewis.

“The salesforce at the tobacco companies are then made aware of these particular concerns and voice them principally to the local Trading Standards. That is also fed into HMRC as well. That reporting process can be very effective but it needs to follow due process. My members don’t expect to be kept in the loop in terms of how things develop, but I do think that if there is a successful prosecution, it could be really helpful in terms of what we can do to offer support.” n

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College of Fellows

By Richard Young

Supporting role

As it embarks upon its eighth decade, the CTSI College of Fellows is not resting on its laurels. Instead, it has come up with new initiatives designed to help members face the future in the knowledge that when times get tough, help is at hand The CTSI College of Fellows is has been a vital lynchpin of the Trading Standards profession for more than 70 years. It provides financial aid to CTSI members and their families in times of crisis, supports Fellows in pursuing educational and research projects that strengthen the profession, and offers a vital network of social and career support to members old and new. College of Fellows Chair, Chris Armstrong, explains: “The College of Fellows was set up in 1951 and became a charity in 1957. Although it’s associated with CTSI, it’s a separate body which reports to the Charity Commission and the CTSI Council.

“Our primary aim is welfare of members of CTSI and their families and children. If they should fall on hard times, as has happened recently, it is our mandate to support them.”

The past few years have proved challenging for the Trading Standards profession, with the problems that arise from diminishing job security and an ageing workforce being compounded by the COVID-19 crisis and the occurrence of unexpected tragedy in several members’ lives.

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“The welfare side of things is something we hope we never have to deal with, for obvious reasons,” says Armstrong. “But in the last couple of years, there have been some really tragic cases where members have passed away before their time, leaving young families.

“We always think that older people are well cared for these days, with pensions and all the rest of it, but that obviously isn’t always the case. And we’re also concerned about younger members who are experiencing problems with things like the cost of childcare.”

Brian Stone, Secretary of the College of Fellows, says: “Welfare services and education grants are available to any member of CTSI. In 2021, we spent £11,000 on welfare, which was in support of members and their dependants.

“Examples include support for a member who’s had long COVID and was off beyond their normal sick pay leave.

We’ve also supported a member dealing with the death of a close family member, and another whose partner has been suffering serious illness with long-term effects. We were able to put some money

in place to help them. Usually it’s to address immediate needs – we’re not a long-term support function but if a crisis occurs, we can offer some money to help get over that hiccup.

“This year, we’ve already paid out annual education grants of £3,000 to children of CTSI members. That’s for six children; it’s £500 per child and it’s just to help out with some education bits, perhaps a school trip or whatever the parents feel is needed. That includes a new member whose husband sadly passed away in December.”

Education and research In addition to providing financial support in times of emergency, the College can also assist members with funding for research projects that feed back into the Trading Standards profession. Stephanie Young, CTSI Joint Lead Officer for Animal Health and Welfare, is the latest recipient of funding. “My research is related to enforcement of animal health and welfare legislation and its application outside of mainland GB,” she says. “There is a personal perception that frequently when considering the application of legislation,

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College of Fellows Chair Chris Armstrong at CTSI Symposium 2021

it is easy to consider GB as a mainland and overlook its islands and how enforcement in more remote areas is managed.

“I would like to undertake research in this area, particularly concentrating on animal health and welfare enforcement and journey times for livestock based upon recent consultations that have been put out by the three devolved nations, with an intention to reduce travel time for livestock in a bid to increase animal welfare.”

“I was delighted with my proposal being accepted,” she adds. “The application process was easy and the Fellows came back to me in a very short timeframe confirming that they would

“In the last couple of years, there have been some really tragic cases where members have passed away before their time, leaving young families” www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

support the research, allowing me to start and make plans.”

The College also offers further education grants to members who wish to bolster their qualifications and develop their careers, but whose employers are unable to help.

“There are two aspects of further education grants,” says Stone. “One is where we provide scholarships for members seeking to improve their qualifications in an area that their local authority wouldn’t pay for. Recent examples include a member doing an MSc in Food Policy; the officer wants to develop their own knowledge and obviously, that contributes back into the profession, so we were able to pay the course fees for that. That member then gained that MSc with distinction, which was very good.

“The other aspect of further education grants is something that arose out of a member’s death last year. We’d been in contact with him prior to his death about what needs his family might have, and he was concerned about his children’s higher education and university education.

We hadn’t previously provided that

“People who are Fellows are interested in the profession; they are experienced officers who have got something to contribute” sort of support – we’d only given small educational grants up to the age of 18.

“So as trustees, we examined it and saw merit in doing it; obviously, there’s a huge cost now to going to university, and if you’ve lost a member of your family, the pressure is on even more. We agreed that for people in those circumstances, we would provide a grant over the three years, up to a total of £5,000, as a contribution towards the costs they’re going to incur.”

Social network While the financial support that the College of Fellows can offer is obviously an essential part of its remit, the social aspects of membership should not be overlooked. These have, inevitably, been

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College of Fellows

By Richard Young

“We encourage members to come forward to us, and if they want to just ask a question, we can probably give a very quick view on that”

curtailed in recent years by COVID-19 however. “For the past two years we’ve been meeting online; our only faceto-face was at last year’s Symposium,” says Armstrong. “I was very pleasantly surprised by the number of people that came up to me and said, ‘we’ve heard what the College has done for members’ families and are really grateful for the support’.”

“The social element happens very rarely, unfortunately, as the College only gets together very occasionally,” Stone adds. “It relies on one of our members graciously offering to organise something; we had a great weekend down in Cornwall, in Penzance, a few years ago. The Scottish Fellows meet up each year and have just done so for first time since the pandemic.

“The other aspect of being a Fellow is that people who are Fellows are interested in the profession; they are experienced officers who have got something to contribute. We try to distinguish that from the work of the charity, but it means that this body of people can offer something back to the Institute in terms of experience and views, and help develop ideas and contribute to things such as the new Vision (see page 14). There are a lot

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of Fellows who are retired members but are still active and have got a part to play in developing the profession as it goes forward.”

The College of Fellows is also a staunch supporter of the CTSI Hero Awards; “We sponsor the consumer journalism award – we’re very pleased to be associated with it as it fits in with our objective as part of educating the general public,” says Stone.

It is also a permanent fixture at CTSI Conference, where it holds a ceremony to induct new Fellows. To become a Fellow, a CTSI member needs to have ‘gone the extra mile’, either for the profession or in support of the Institute. They can then be nominated by a colleague, if they are seconded and supported by six other members. “Anybody can be nominated for Fellowship, Armstrong says. “If a member thinks a colleague is worthy of a nomination they should get in touch and provide us with information about their work and achievements.”

Looking ahead, Armstrong says, “I personally would like to see what more we can do as a charity to try and examine anything and everything that might arise in the future. There are clearly some

things that we cannot do. But as long as we can fit them into our charitable criteria, who knows? There could be all sorts of things that might crop up. And I think it’s particularly important to keep the younger people involved.”

For those members seeking help, Stone says, “each branch has appointed a College Liaison Officer, who will take the lead in referring matters to us based on their local knowledge and branch area. That’s the normal route. But often we get notified of these things by other routes as well. And we will try to respond straightaway. Normally in a matter of weeks, we can make a decision.

“We encourage members to come forward to us, and if they want to just ask a question, we can probably give a very quick view on that. Education grant applications take a little bit longer but we respond very quickly to welfare matters. And welfare matters are always confidential.”

In closing, Stone adds: “We can’t work without the support and donations of CTSI members and the regional branches, so big thanks goes to them. Most branches are very generous when they can give us a donation which helps us to fund this work.” n For further information about the College of Fellows, including details of how to apply for grants, funding and support, as well as how to nominate a colleague as a Fellow, visit: www.tradingstandards.uk/ about-ctsi/college-of-fellows

Summer 2022

Registered charity No 213351

The registered charity of CTSI We rely on your support by way of donations to enable these initiatives

Support Students Achievement Scholarships Valuable OverFunding 70 years Award of suppor Programme t to CTSI Profession and theResearch

profession

Over 70 years of support to CTSI and the profession

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

The College door is always open contact us at: college@tsi.org.uk www.tradingstandards.uk

For further information contact college@tsi.org.uk

Untitled-1 1

12/05/2022 15:41:39

Mentorship

By Giles Speid

Look for the ‘ubuntu’ in you

Encouraging open and honest conversations about societal issues is at the heart of a new mentorship programme, says Giles Speid, Team Manager at Westminster Trading Standards There is a familiar African saying that goes, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, meaning that we all have an input into how we raise each other’s children and feed into their life experiences. That is not the only wise African saying we can learn from. I was watching The Daily Show, hosted by South African comedian Trevor Noah. During a behind-thescenes segment, Noah talked about how in his village they treated each person, regardless of where they came from, with respect and equanimity.

He said they treated everyone with ‘ubuntu’ – which means that you can’t see the humanity in you, unless you see the humanity in everyone else.

In October 2021, I made a short presentation to the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers (ACTSO) Managers Group about launching a small inclusive mentoring scheme for Service Heads primarily outside of the M25. I chose this area specifically due to the racial makeup of the profession in certain parts of the country with a distinct demographic. This is something that was evidenced when we looked at the initial findings of the CTSI Diversity Survey that was commissioned last year.

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I was looking for several Service Heads or Managers to volunteer and be part of the Ubuntu programme of inclusive mentoring. Over the next couple of months several Service Heads kindly submitted their profile for consideration onto the scheme. They have now been matched with senior Black and Asian staff and carefully chosen allies to discuss topical issues that are happening throughout our society.

Addressing the issues Following a successful sign-up by the Service Heads in February 2022 we started the mentoring sessions. These last for at least an hour but usually for much longer, and consist of conversations about the profession and chosen topics or events that are occurring in the UK, selected by myself and overseen by ACTSO Policy Director Wendy Martin.

Light and heavy subjects are debated on a one-to-one basis in full confidentiality. Only the participants know what is discussed. In these conversations there are no right or wrong answers, just a better understanding of culture and various life experiences that are usually not witnessed or shared by everyone.

I am hopeful that from this, lives will

be changed, new allies will be formed, campaigns will be organised in an inclusive manner, recruitment processes will be diverse and conversations will be undertaken without fear of anyone being labelled by saying the wrong thing unintentionally.

Some of the topics are directly related to our profession and some are on broader societal issues. These have included ‘The meaning of Woke?’ and ‘Do you feel there has been unconscious bias during your recruitment process?’

The pilot is running for 10 months and is reviewed every couple of months with the mentors. There will be a final review at the end of the project.

The success of the programme will look

“I don’t just want to say I am an ally; I actively want to be one and do better” Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards

“This program provides a safe space for some really tough conversations and allows us to start challenging behaviours and learnings” and feel different to each of the various participants. However, no one should leave the Ubuntu programme feeling the same as when they entered.

Moments of revelation Having been involved in mentoring over the years, I was once told that you can only hope for a ‘penny drop’ moment. It can come at any time and usually sometime after the mentoring process has finished.

The aim of the project is to identify and assist Service Heads and Managers who are interested in becoming allies in the force for change within our profession and society. This could be reflected in recruitment, promotion or business engagement as demonstrated by some of the comments made by those involved.

“The Ubuntu programme has allowed a space where topics can be explored and discussed with understanding and openness,” said one participant.

“Due to the environment created and personalities involved I feel that I have

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quickly been able to strike up a good rapport. This has allowed the ability to discuss pertinent, sensitive topics in an open and comfortable way.”

Another participant said: “I am so pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the CTSI Ubuntu programme. I have a monthly meeting with a mentor via Teams. We have very different experiences of growing up and living in Britain due, in no small part, to the fact that I am White, and my mentor is Black. Our discussions are always thought-provoking, stay with me way beyond our hour together, and have led me to read a variety of books by global majority authors.”

“I don’t just want to say I am an ally; I actively want to be one and do better,” said another participant. “This program provides a safe space for some really tough conversations and allows us to start challenging behaviours and learnings.

I really hope it can bring about change.”

Some of our oldest British companies are making concerted efforts to be more

reflective as they recognise that the Parker Review and McGregor Reports offer provable evidence that a more diverse workforce will bring about better outcomes for our service delivery, business, profession and the communities that we serve. An honest assessment recognises that our profession needs to be more reflective of a modern-looking profession in the UK. Lack of true diversity on the leadership boards are counter-productive to any public-facing organisation, whether it is for-profit or non-profit.

As pointed out by the psychologist Viktor Franklyn: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” n About the author Giles Speid sits on the CTSI & ACTSO Race & Equalities Working Groups. For further information, contact equalities@tsi.org.uk

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In conversation with: Lord Jamie Lindsay

Journal of Trading Standards

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

LORD JAMIE LINDSAY The President of CTSI and Chair of the UK Accreditation Scheme (UKAS) explains how accreditation and standards underpin consumer confidence, and why Trading Standards has friends in high places

BY RICHARD YOUNG

As a member of the House of Lords with a background in business, Government and consumer protection, Lord Jamie Lindsay knows better than most the role that consumer confidence has to play in bolstering a precarious economy. He also knows that consumer confidence is a fragile and hard-won thing, and requires constant vigilance to maintain.

Speaking via Zoom on a blustery April morning, Lord Lindsay starts by explaining what initially sparked his interest in consumer protection. “I was a Minister in the John Major era with responsibility for, amongst other things, agriculture, food and food safety,” he says.

“In 1996 BSE became a major issue. It led to a consumer confidence crisis in British beef, which spread to a confidence crisis in the red meat industry as a whole.

“I learned that consumer confidence is a critical ingredient of any sector and any business, and that just having a Government Minister saying, ‘trust me, this product is safe,’ is not good enough if consumers have lost confidence in that product. Indeed, even if, as a Government Minister, you stood side-by-side with a Government-appointed scientist who also said, ‘trust me, this product is safe’, that actually didn’t have a huge impact.

“The level of assurance and reassurance that consumers need goes beyond legislation and the black-andwhite print of regulations, and goes beyond Ministers saying ‘trust me’.”

The realisation that trust has to be earned, rather than decreed, was

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accompanied by a recognition that by itself, the law often falls short when it comes to promoting awareness and critical thinking among consumers.

Something was needed to fill that gap and engage them on a more emotional level.

“We began to understand that consumers wanted to be confident that standards were in place which captured good practice,” says Lord Lindsay. “It wasn’t just about the fact that the product was not dangerous – they wanted to know that that product actually met good standards throughout its production and throughout its lifecycle.

“Legislation and regulations are quite good at defining whether a product is either safe or dangerous. But they are not so good at capturing good practices so a business is able to demonstrate that it has a good story to tell. And that led me to understanding how standards can be applied to the production of other products, beyond food.

“I began to understand about accreditation – third-party verification that a supply chain was meeting standards at every step, and businesses weren’t marking their own homework. There was a need for proper third-party oversight. That became the key to rebuilding consumer confidence in British beef and red meat.

The Meat and Livestock Commission [which was superseded in 2008 by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board] set up an initiative, which I chaired, to roll out standards underpinned by accreditation and consumer education throughout the entire red meat industry.

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In conversation with: Lord Jamie Lindsay

Left: The Red Tractor scheme stemmed from Lord Lindsay’s work in the 1990s; Right; consumer confidence in fire-proof cladding has emerged as a major issue.

The average consumer doesn’t realise the extent to which accreditation and standards underpin and render safe and efficient almost everything that they engage with in a normal day It was aimed at boosting consumer confidence and safety, and it was a major undertaking. Indeed, some of these supply chains are extremely long. It may start with the livestock feed sector; then there is the farm itself; then there is animal transport; then the market and then the abattoir; then processing; then distribution; then the food service sector, butchers and others in the retail sector.

“That project morphed into the Red Tractor scheme, which to this day remains a consumer-facing reassurance that good standards are being met through accredited conformity assessment.

“So that was the journey that made me understand the importance of consumer standards and consumer confidence. Today, I’m very still very involved in accreditation; I chair the national accreditation body UKAS, of which CTSI is a very important member, and hence my involvement with CTSI and with the Consumer Codes Approval Scheme (CCAS).”

Early adopters In the course of his involvement in the development of standards and accreditation, what reactions has Lord Lindsay observed from businesses themselves? Were there any objections?

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“The food industry was quick to see the value of standards and accredited certification but there were sectors which were much slower to understand the benefits,” he says. “And then within certain sectors there were the early adopters who really saw the benefits to their business ahead of others.

“This is a generalisation, but on the whole regulation tends to come with a level of bureaucracy and intervention that is not naturally welcomed by businesses and industry. However, most would accept that – especially when you’re talking about risk and safety – there is a useful role for regulation as an absolute safeguard and to create a level playing field.

“But in this day and age consumers expect good practice and a commitment to quality as a sort of minimum licence to be in business. There are areas, such as animal welfare perhaps, where legislation doesn’t go far enough for the modern consumer.

“That’s where standards come in.

Businesses recognise that they can put a product on the market that says to the consumer, ‘this is not only safe, but has been produced using best practice and meets all the expectations that a consumer might have.’”

Lord Lindsay believes that for certain industries, the adoption of standards and the possibility to have conformity to those standards assessed is a vital component of a resilient business model. “Toys and electrical goods spring to mind as areas where consumer confidence could be fragile, particularly when lapses can lead to injury or fatalities. In very recent times, since the Grenfell tragedy, when it comes to new construction products and cladding, standards have had a very important role to play in making people confident that the buildings in which they live are secure and safe, and not a threat to themselves and their families.

“The average consumer doesn’t realise the extent to which accreditation and standards underpin and render safe and efficient almost everything that they engage with in a normal day. From the safety of their food when they eat breakfast; to the safety of the car in which they go to school or to work; to the accuracy of the petrol pump that puts fuel into that car; to the safety of the lift that takes them up to an upper floor when they arrive. The accredited conformity assessment that ensures these standards are being met brings us into their lives much more than I think they realise.”

Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards

In all the visits I’ve made to meet Trading Standards officers on the ground, I’ve looked at what they do and the extent of their responsibilities with very finite, limited resources, and it does worry me Against the turbulent backdrop with which enforcers, businesses and consumers have been forced to contend over the past few years, from the chaos of COVID to the confusion of Brexit and the emergence of new ways of buying and selling goods, what role does Lord Lindsay think standards and accreditation have to play in the modern age?

“Living in a developed society with a very strong media presence, there is an expectation of high standards in almost anything the average consumer uses or purchases,” he says. “Anything less than a good standard is not tolerated. With COVID, for instance, the testing regime required some sort of underpinning so that people using test kits could feel confident that they actually worked. The Government asked UKAS to accredit the private testing companies in order to ensure that they were competent. In the wake of Brexit, rewriting some of the regulations will perhaps require a new role for accreditation to be rolled out into new areas.

“With the online dimension that has invaded all our lives, the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, the wave of AI that is coming into the marketplace, there is a very strong case for a more robust consumer protection infrastructure that is properly

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funded by the Government and properly conducted in terms of well-trained, wellresourced Trading Standards Officers on the ground. That also needs to be complemented with things like Consumer Codes, standards and accreditation.

There’s a range of ingredients that we need to get put in place to protect the modern consumer.”

Perennial problems When we arrive at the subject of funding – as every conversation about consumer protection seems to, sooner or later – I ask whether the importance of consumer protection is fully appreciated in the corridors of Whitehall and within the ‘upper echelons’ of Parliament.

“It could be better,” Lord Lindsay believes. “There is a basic understanding of the importance of consumer protection, consumer information and consumer education. But, you know, it needs to be further enhanced. I’ve got some very good colleagues, especially those I’ve worked with in the House of Lords – there are former CTSI Presidents, like Baroness Crawley, for instance. So there’s a sort of clique of people who really have quite an advanced understanding of the role of consumer protection. I’m certainly

not alone in seeking to disseminate that understanding even more widely.”

And is the voice of Trading Standards – and specifically CTSI – heard loudly enough? “I’ve never felt that CTSI has been backwards in coming forwards,” says Lord Lindsay. “I’ve always been very conscious of the advocacy, lobbying and engagement that CTSI has pursued. Its engagement with central Government, with departments, with Ministers and officials, I think is excellent. And I hope that I’m a useful part of that team.

“However, Government itself is allowing the Trading Standards infrastructure across the United Kingdom to become ever-more underfunded, given the duties it has to discharge. In all the visits I’ve made to meet Trading Standards Officers on the ground, I’ve looked at what they do and the extent of their responsibilities with very finite, limited resources, and it does worry me. There is a very strong case for making sure that the funding and resources that they have access to is more appropriate.”

When it comes to the role that industry itself has to play in preventing consumer harm before Trading Standards steps in, “more businesses could do more than they’re currently doing,” Lord Lindsay says. “Consumer Codes are one obvious route that more businesses should adopt to provide greater confidence and reassurance to their customers, and to take the pressure off the more statutory backdrop.

“More businesses could adopt standards and accredited certification to ensure that consumers are getting the goods or services they think they’re getting, and that there isn’t some detriment down the line after the purchase of a product or use of a service.

I think the business community, many of whom are on the right track, could make sure there’s a much greater adoption of Consumer Codes, voluntary standards and conformity assessment.

“Everyone could do more. Central Government could do more and people like myself need to be more effective. And businesses could do more in order to give consumers the deal that they deserve.” n

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Imperial markings

By William Henry

Weighing up the options

A potential reintroduction of imperial markings in the UK raised eyebrows in many quarters when it was mooted last year. But what are the implications for Trading Standards?

In 2019 Prime Minister Boris Johnson said measuring goods in pounds and ounces was an “ancient liberty”, promising to bring about an “era of generosity and tolerance towards traditional measurements”.

Earlier this year, the Government commissioned a study into the possible economic benefits of reintroducing imperial markings on UK-produced goods. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) will spearhead the study with Minister for Brexit Opportunities Jacob Rees-Mogg expected to be heavily involved.

According to CTSI, the study must include a full impact assessment, including costs to businesses, clarity of options for consumers, and any new processes for regulating markets.

“It would need to start by looking at the implementation point of view from a government, local authority and Trading Standards perspective, and a lot of that is asking questions about capacity and resource,” says CTSI Chief Executive, John Herriman. “Then there would need to be questions raised to ensure compliance and enforcement. That needs to be fully investigated, particularly given the fact we’ve had cuts in Trading Standards services across the country.”

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CTSI has previously called for a consultation and full assessment of the proposed reintroduction of imperial, has advised the Government to consider the impact on the consumer, and delivered a letter to Consumer Minister Paul Scully seeking assurances that assessments will be informed by professional bodies.

“The Government will review the law to identify how we can give more choice to businesses and consumers over the units of measurement they use,” a BEIS spokesperson told the Journal of Trading Standards. “This is an important step in taking back control of our laws to ensure they work best for British business. An assessment of the economic impact will be carried out in due course.”

Thinking on the ground The metric system – which took the place of imperial as the main unit of measurement in the UK in the 1970s – is used across the European Union and beyond, in countries including Brazil, China, India, Japan and Australia. The United States, Burma and Liberia use non-metric systems. There is suggestion that the fact the UK still relies on certain imperial standards – such as pints and miles – creates a confusing system.

However, Trading Standards officers point

out that the current system allows traders to list both units depending on consumer preference and understanding.

“Some shops provide both now,” says Iain Hoey, CTSI Lead Officer for Metrology. “You can have metric and imperial markings in shops, which probably benefits the older consumer.

Many local butchers for example have imperial as well as metric.”

Consumer understanding should be at the heart of the assessment, says Hoey.

“I think we should be concentrating on making sure consumers are getting what they pay for. Consumers need to be able to make clear value judgements,” he says.

“We should make sure that consumers are able to clearly assess quantity in terms they’re familiar with” Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards

“The replacement of equipment would be hugely detrimental to merchants” current budget constrictions, that could be a challenge.

“The Government should be ensuring that Trading Standards is properly funded and resourced to ensure that consumers are getting the correct mode and metric quantities, rather than introducing a new system, especially in this period of unprecedented inflation,” says Hoey.

“Especially as the cost of living increases we should make sure that consumers are able to clearly assess quantity in terms and values they’re familiar with.”

As many UK-produced goods are likely to be sold on international markets as well as domestically, an introduction of imperial would require the formalisation of a dual system in which metric is also included on all products in order to conform with rules in other jurisdictions.

For Herriman, the impact assessment must consider whether this could add unnecessary confusion.

“From a consumer perspective there is a risk of losing simplicity,” he says.

“There’s a challenge there. By introducing additional complexity here, a dual system could confuse consumers, and therefore you end up with consumers who have potentially less confidence as a result of a two-tiered system.”

Hoey says the impact assessment should also focus on what the change would mean for businesses, whom he fears

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could face heavy costs and upheaval.

“The replacement of equipment would be hugely detrimental to merchants. It would lead to reconsiderations around advertising and most pre-packed goods would need to be remeasured,” he says.

For Trading Standards officers, a change to or addition of imperial markings would “make things significantly more difficult,” says Herriman.

“The baseline unit of measurement is metric. If officers then have to do things in pounds and ounces as well, we would end up running a dual system. We would therefore have to inspect things both in metric or imperial or have to convert from one to the other. At the very least it just makes it a much more confusing world.”

Those involved with the impact assessment would have to consider the cost of providing Trading Standards officers with new or adjusted measuring equipment and training – which would most likely need to come from local authority coffers, says Hoey. Given

Corridors of Whitehall Hoey points out that the impact assessment would also need to consider the changes that would be required not only to the Weights and Measures Act, but other associated and unrelated rules and regulations that quote metric. A specific plan would also need to be assessed for Northern Ireland, where EU regulations are still followed in line with the Protocol.

Acknowledging that Brexit has been built on the premise that the UK now has a “certain degree of freedom”, Herriman suggests the assessment must focus on whether or not a reintroduction of imperial could support economic recovery and the Government’s LevellingUp agenda. To inform that, he suggests that CTSI, the British Retail Consortium, the Federation of Small Businesses and the licensed consumer organisations should be included in the assessment processes.

“The important thing is that they’re making sure they’re getting the experts’ opinion, so that the impact assessments can reach a balanced conclusion,” he says. n

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CPPD Module

WORDS BY

Nikki Pasek MBE, Closha Associates

Nikki has more than 25 years’ experience working in the public sector. She was the Head of Supporting Businesses and Communities at Cambridgeshire County Council as well as the Commercial Director at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute.

Nikki is an experienced trainer specialising in leadership training and development

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 52).

More details are included on the following spread.

Successful completion is worth one hour of CPPD.

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CPPD Module 22:

Developing your leadership potential Developing the leadership skills of the public sector workforce, including Trading Standards, is key to successfully delivering against a range of social and economic priorities Public services are now more complex than ever and are facing increasing pressures, such as changing demographics, economic uncertainty and rapidly evolving technology. Today’s public service leaders need to have the skills to work in an ever-changing and challenging landscape, delivering services with significant constraints in financial and personnel resources.

In 2018, the Better Public Services Report by the Public Services Leadership Taskforce identified three primary themes that leaders in the public sector found challenging: ▪ As leaders progress in their roles, it is essential that there is a mechanism in place to enable access to leadership networks that provide support, best practice sharing and learning from the experience of others.

▪ Leaders are constantly taking on new responsibilities so need support to rapidly develop the skills, knowledge and behaviours they need to fulfil their potential.

▪ Public services are complex and crosscutting, so increased and effective collaboration between leaders, stakeholders and partners is a source of considerable public value.

Local authority regulatory services play an important role in public service delivery and are key to protecting local communities and supporting economic

development through their work with local businesses. At the same time, they collectively have to respond to national threats and balance local expectations with the various statutory duties set out by central Government and national regulators.

During the pandemic, a Whitehall Regulatory Services Task and Finish group was set up by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (now called the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities). Underneath this, a working group was established to specifically consider resources, capacity and qualifications. This group discussed the current challenges for regulatory services resources as well as possible options for addressing them.

Leadership development within Regulatory Services was identified as a priority for action. It was recognised that the lack of regulators in senior management positions impacts on the ability to influence areas such as decision-making and budget-setting.

Investment in regulatory services leadership development not only helps to provide current strong local regulatory leaders, but will also in turn help to produce senior advocates for regulation who have a seat at the top table and can influence the future sustainability of services.

Summer 2022

Journal of Trading Standards

“These five dimensions are absolutely essential for developing regulatory leaders who are authentic, empowering, collaborative and inclusive.”

Harter, S. (2002), “Authenticity” in Snyder, C. R. and Lopez, S.J. (Eds), Handbook of Positive Psychology, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 382-394.

1

In parallel to this work, a report from the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Institute of Leadership and Management called Leadership in Housing – the Looming Capability Gap explored ways to develop the next generation of housing leaders. Many of the issues highlighted in this report were equally applicable to local authority regulatory services and inspired a group of experienced regulatory leaders to develop a leadership programme that was designed specifically for local regulators. This programme was designed to provide a consistent approach for leadership development in our professions across the UK. OPSS, in partnership with LGA, CTSI and CIEH, is supporting the Regulatory Leadership programme, which is delivered by Closha Associates.

The programme is run by experienced regulatory leaders who understand the specific challenges faced by frontline services. This enables tutors to demonstrate, from professional experience, how theory can be used in practice, which enables positive behaviour change for front-line regulatory leaders.

The Regulatory Leaders programme has also been independently verified and accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management and follows their Dimensions of Leadership. These dimensions are based on extensive

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research into the knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours and values that enable organisational leaders to achieve successful outcomes in any private, public or voluntary sector:

Achievement

Vision

Authenticity

Ownership

Collaboration

These five dimensions are absolutely essential for developing regulatory leaders who are authentic, empowering, collaborative and inclusive.

Authenticity Harter (2002)1 defined authenticity to mean that ‘a person’s thoughts and feelings are consistent with their actions’.

Authentic leaders are recognised by their integrity and so inspire trust. They know and live by their values, and they challenge and empower others to be the best they can be.

Regulatory leaders can demonstrate authenticity by: ▪ Acting with integrity and fairness in all decision-making; ▪ Remaining open and honest to help build trust; ▪ Consistently putting professional interests before their own personal views; ▪ Being a positive role model for other staff in their team or service.

Vision Vision is a significant aspect of leadership as it involves the skills to look ahead, innovate and cope with the unknown.

Visionary leaders realise that a clear strategy is essential and that it is vital to inspire those around them. They are able to spot when change is required and put this on their service/team agenda.

Vision is essential for leaders to respond effectively and create opportunities in environments that continue to transform at a rapid pace.

Regulatory leaders can demonstrate vision by: ▪ Developing ‘future-ready’ plans, even when unsure what that future is; ▪ Remaining alert and making the right moves to get services/teams where they need to be; ▪ Being creative and innovative; ▪ Adapting their responses to the need for change.

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CPPD Module

CPPD MODULE 22: LEADERSHIP

Review the 8 questions below, and when you’re ready, submit your answers at tradingstandards.uk/ cppdtest 1. How can leadership skills development help to protect the future of regulatory services?

2. What are the Institute of Leadership and Management’s five Dimensions of Leadership?

3. Why did the Leadership in Housing – the Looming Capability Gap report help to inspire the development of the Regulatory Leaders programme?

4. Who defined authenticity to mean that ‘a person’s thoughts and feelings are consistent with their actions’?

5. Why is it so important for visionary leaders to develop a clear strategy?

6. Give examples of the ways you can demonstrate ownership in leadership 7. Should collaborative leaders just focus on building networks within their own organisations?

8. What two programmes are available to specifically help Trading Standards professionals develop their leadership skills and knowledge?

Applicants who complete the module successfully will be given a certificate.

The test must be taken by 31 October 2022.

If you have any questions, please email training@tsi.org.uk Previous module answers are available to members on the Journal of Trading Standards website.

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Journal of Trading Standards

Achievement Regulatory leaders need to be adaptable to rapidly changing and dynamic environments in order to be effective and achieve consistent results.

An achievement orientation is about having purpose, delivering outcomes, being proud of one’s work, stretching oneself and others, and being willing to adapt as necessary. Achievement requires ongoing engagement in activities that improve performance.

Leaders with an achievement focus are more likely to be positive role models who can demonstrate how to deliver desired outcomes.

Regulatory leaders can demonstrate achievement by: ▪ Focusing on constantly evolving their achievements and not being static; ▪ Being involved with activities that help to improve their performance; ▪ Ensuring team and individual objectives align to deliver outcomes; ▪ Helping others in their team to feel supported to deliver in their roles.

Miller, L. (2008) From difficult to disturbed. New York: Amacom

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Ownership The damage done to the morale of employees when their leaders shirk responsibilities and deflect blame onto others should not be underestimated (Miller, 2008)2.

A leader demonstrates ownership when they take responsibility, act in a decisive way, solve problems, delegate well to others, use their own initiative and undertake regular reflection on events and their own actions.

Regulatory leaders can demonstrate ownership by: ▪ Taking personal responsibility for their everyday behaviours, actions and interactions; ▪ Leading others by example and showing they are prepared to get involved; ▪ Encouraging and allowing time for personal development; ▪ Empowering colleagues to take ownership of different work areas; ▪ Allowing others the opportunity to learn from the mistakes that that they make and not using these as the basis for a shaming exercise.

Collaboration The complexity of public sector organisations and the volatility of the environments within which they operate call for a new approach to working outside and across organisational boundaries.

Successful leadership encourages, facilitates and supports collaboration.

Collaborative leaders encourage people to work well together and are able to work effectively with others inside and outside their organisation.

Regulatory leaders can demonstrate collaboration by: ▪ Investing in relationships; ▪ Understanding the dynamics of all teams; ▪ Recognising the value of internal and external networking; ▪ Dealing effectively with conflict; ▪ Taking a proactive approach to managing partners and stakeholders; ▪ Recognising the value of diversity and inclusion. n The Regulatory Leaders Programme is aimed at Trading Standards professionals who already have some management or leadership experience and it helps them to put leadership theory from the programme into practice. The programme runs from April and October each year, and takes place remotely over nine months, so is perfect for busy working professionals Closha Associates and CTSI have also developed the Aspiring Leaders programme which is designed for aspiring and emerging leaders that are ready to take the first steps to becoming a leader.

Find out more at: www. tradingstandards.uk/practitioners/ professional-training/regulatoryleadership-programme/ Closha Associates would like to thank the Institute of Leadership and Management for their kind permission which enabled us to use their content in the development of this article. You can find out more about the Institute of Leadership and Management at: www.institutelm.com

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Legal

By Laura Phillips

The ABCs of CBD The growing market for CBD products makes for a fascinating but potentially problematic new area for Trading Standards.

Laura Phillips examines the legal context within which the sector operates

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CBD (cannabidiol) is a chemical compound extracted from cannabis.

Unlike THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the other main compound found in the cannabis plant, and the one which is responsible for the psychoactive effects (the ‘high’), CBD is not considered to be illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and associated legislation. It is not the same as CBPM (medicinal cannabis) which is also legal, and available on prescription in very limited circumstances for certain medical conditions. CBD is becoming increasingly popular with consumers based on (at least for the moment) anecdotal evidence that it can help with pain relief and conditions such as anxiety and insomnia.

In the past few years, there has been huge growth in the market for CBD products which are widely available, including from high street retailers. CBD is being used in a range of consumer products in increasingly novel ways.

Available products include oils, vape liquids, topical creams, cosmetics, cookies, gum and even sanitary products and dog treats1. The Association for the Cannabinoid Industry estimates that the value of the UK market for CBD products in 2021 was £690m in annual sales.

At the same time the regulatory landscape relating to CBD is developing rapidly. This has been made more complex by the UK’s exit from the EU. There has also been concern and

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Journal of Trading Standards

“There is an obvious commercial incentive for businesses to push the limits of how much THC is present in a given batch”

1 No comment is made as to the benefits, legality or even safety of all such products.

This remains part of UK law under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

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confusion about levels of THC found in CBD products and how to ensure that they are safe for consumers.

All of this has given rise to myriad and complex issues concerning the classification and regulation of CBD products. This article focuses on two: permissible THC levels in CBD products and the regulation of CBD products as novel foods, both of which have been the subject of recent developments.

THC levels in CBD products When CBD is extracted from cannabis often the extracted product also contains trace amounts of THC. As discussed above, unlike CBD, THC is a controlled drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

1971 and associated legislation. This means that business or individuals who import or sell CBD products containing illegal levels of THC are at risk of being prosecuted for Class B drugs offences on a commercial scale. There has been at least one attempted prosecution for such offences. Although the police are responsible for regulating illegal drugs, partnerships between Trading Standards and police departments investigating CDB products already exist and are in the author’s view only likely to become more common.

Although it is scientifically possible to virtually eliminate THC from CBD products, this is expensive: whilst it is fairly quick and easy to eliminate, say, 99% of the THC in a given batch of CBD, removing that final 1%, or 0.1%, or 0.01%, gets exponentially more expensive because it means going through the extraction process over and over again.

This means that there is an obvious commercial incentive for businesses to push the limits of how much THC is present in a given batch.

At present there is confusion and disagreement across the industry, regulators and the police (who are responsible for investigating and prosecuting drugs offences) about what levels of THC are permissible, not least because there is some debate about which CBD products are exempt from control under Regulation 2 (1) of the Misuse of Drugs Regulation 2001 (the

MDR). In particular, there is currently no authority on the meaning of Regulation 2 (1) (c) which requires that ‘no one component part of the [exempt] product or preparation contains more than one milligram of the controlled drug’.

The Home Office’s initial position is that ‘component part of the product’ means the whole product, but unsurprisingly industry disagreed and said that a component part is a dose or serving suggestion. To clear up this inconsistency, in January 2021 the Government asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to recommend a THC limit by weight. The ACMD did this on 17 December 2021, recommending a limit of 0.05 mg of THC per ‘unit of consumption’ (i.e. dose) in consumer products.

This report remains a recommendation and it remains to be seen whether and when the Home Office will introduce any amendments to the MDR. Food products containing CBD In 2016 the MHRA confirmed that products containing CBD which meet the definition in Regulation 2 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 would be classified as medicinal products and subject to regulation under that legislation. The effect of this is that CBD products for consumption are invariably sold as food or food supplements and regulated under this (less stringent) legislation.

Novel foods are foods which had not been widely consumed by people in the UK or the EU before May 1997.

They are regulated in the UK under Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 (‘the Novel Food Regulation)2 which came into effect on 1 January 2018 and the Novel Foods (England) Regulations 2018/154 (‘the 2018 Regulations’).

Prior to Brexit, essentially, novel foods were those which the European Commission had decided were novel

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Legal

By Laura Phillips

foods by listing them in the Novel Food Catalogue. Thereafter any person who wanted to market a novel food required authorisation to do so from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Where products were granted authorisation they were placed on the ‘Union List’.

Enforcement of the Novel Food Regulation remained with Member States, and in the UK, that meant local authority Trading Standards departments3.

In mid-January 2019 the Commission changed its stance on CBD products

“At present there is confusion and disagreement across the industry, regulators and the police about what levels of THC are permissible” and amended the Catalogue so that all CBD would be considered novel (in very general terms, previously authorisation was only required to market CBD if the levels of CBD were significantly boosted beyond their natural level).

The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. To cut a long story short, it wasn’t at all clear whether the UK would stick to the Commission’s view on classification or chart a different course, but the eventual outcome was that the UK decided to stick with the Commission’s view, and in February 2020 the FSA made an announcement that it would be implementing a similar novel foods process for CBD as EFSA had done4. Applications are complex, must be evidence-based and are subject to a risk assessment by the FSA. The FSA estimates that most applications will take at least a year.

This left the problem that nobody had applied for authorisation for their CBD

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products because nobody thought they needed to. The practical result was that on paper an entire industry was criminalised overnight. Major legitimate businesses were suddenly criminal enterprises with hundreds of millions of pounds of criminal property (sales revenue) being generated every year. To solve this problem, on 13 February 2020 the FSA effectively declared an amnesty and issued guidance to local authorities not to enforce if a product was on the ‘CBD Public List’ which it intended to produce.

The next problem was that it took considerable time for the FSA to set up the CBD Public List. This is at least in part because this is a massive process (the first such novel foods process undertaken in the UK since Brexit). As a first step, the FSA required an application for authorisation of every single existing CBD product to be submitted to them for ‘validation’, following which that product

could be placed on the CBD Public List.

It is important to note that validation does not mean that a product is authorised; it only means that the product has ‘a credible application for authorisation with the FSA’. A few early validations were made, but the full CBD Public List was only released on 1 April 2022 (over a year after the FSA’s initial estimated date).

There are currently 57 products with ‘validated’ status on the list, with a further 3,479 ‘awaiting evidence’ (put simply, this means that in the FSA’s view they are ‘progressing well’ towards the requirements for validation).

Where does this leave local authorities in relation to their enforcement responsibilities in respect of CBD products? Although the FSA amnesty is only guidance, in the author’s view, if a particular product appears on the CBD Public List there is a good argument that it is an abuse of process

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Journal of Trading Standards

Regulation 3 of the 2018 Regulations and Section 5 of the Food Safety Act 1990.

3

There is at least some debate about whether the EFSA, and the FSA, are right to classify CBD as a novel food. No court, European or domestic, has ruled on the issue.

The debate is, however, now almost certainly academic. It would take an extremely brave court to overturn what has been the settled position of the Home Office and the FSA for more than two years, and the entire scheme of regulation that has been developed in consequence.

4

to prosecute for placing it on the market without authorisation contrary to Regulation 4 of the 2018 Regulations. This argument would be particularly strong where an application has been validated.

That said, the products on the CBD Public List appear to represent a very small number of the products available.

Local authorities remain under a duty to enforce the 2018 Regulations in relation to CBD products. If a product placed on

“Nobody had applied for authorisation for their CBD products because nobody thought they needed to… an entire industry was criminalised overnight” www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

the market is not on the CBD Public List then an offence is committed contrary to Regulation 4 of the 2018 Regulations and there is no bar to enforcement or prosecution by reason of the FSA guidance. Such offences are summary only, but punishable by unlimited fine.

Further, CBD products are often mislabelled (also an offence under the 2018 Regulations), may contain unauthorised nutrition or health claims, or may otherwise breach the requirements of food safety and hygiene law. Products that are shown by testing to contain excess THC can be referred to the police for investigation under controlled drugs legislation. There may also, in appropriate cases, be scope for an application for confiscation under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Given the value of the CBD industry, such applications may be very substantial.

In summary, now that the uncertainty

about which products are subject to the FSA’s amnesty has been resolved, this is an area that local authorities would be wise to turn their minds to, if they haven’t already. Given the vast numbers of products available, the speed at which they have come onto the market, and the past uncertainty about enforcement, there are likely to be widespread issues. There are already a number of major novel foods criminal investigations underway. n About the author Laura Phillips is a specialist regulatory advocate at Gough Square Chambers with a broad practice encompassing consumer law, food standards, health and safety, fire safety and environmental law. lauraphillips@goughsq.co.uk

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Conference 2022

By Karin Layton

CTSI CONFERENCE 2022 CTSI makes a long-overdue return to Bristol in June for three days of learning, sharing and reconnecting with colleagues The Institute was last in Bristol more than 130 years ago, in 1890, back when we were still known as the British Association of Inspectors of Weights and Measures. Little did we know when we booked the venue for this year’s Conference that it had been used to host the dinner of our annual meeting all those years ago.

The Mercure Grand Hotel, where Conference takes place from 15-17 June this year, is situated in the heart of Bristol. It is a historic Grade II-listed building which, following a makeover, gained a stylish and distinctive new look in 2018. The hotel’s rejuvenated interior draws inspiration from both the city’s independent art scene and the building’s rich historic past.

The Ballroom, which will play host to the plenaries and masterclasses, and the

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Wessex Suite, which will welcome our exhibitors, certainly live up to the name of the hotel. Situated on the first floor alongside the seminar rooms and some smaller meeting rooms, we are confident that delegates will be able to familiarise themselves with the venue quickly. There is even a hotel bar and restaurant for all to enjoy.

Bristol is a vibrant, contemporary place steeped in history and we are delighted to be holding our annual event in this wonderful city. Outside the venue, it’s a short walk to the harbourside. The Branch Welcome on Wednesday night will be held in the Harbour House, the perfect setting for this informal networking opportunity.

There is lots to see and do, from visiting the Clifton Suspension Bridge or a walk along the banks of the Avon to

heritage sites like Bristol Cathedral and the Lord Mayor’s Chapel. Eateries are in abundance; if you venture to the harbour on the South Bank you will find Cargo, a cluster of small restaurants in shipping containers offering boutique food; for a more eclectic choice head to the Stokes Croft area for fantastic, inexpensive food from small independent venues. Closer to the Mercure Grand you will find a wide range of chains and independent outlets.

Down to business The theme for this year’s event, ‘A Changing Profession for a Changing World’, is appropriate – the topics under discussion 130 years ago included ‘the stamping of milk churns and barrels’.

Fast-forward to the present day, and the main platform will see us learn how to support business innovation that protects

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Journal of Trading Standards

Conference 2023

We are delighted to announce that next year we will be returning to Birmingham and the Eastside Rooms, the terrific venue we attended in 2021. The dates are 20-22 June 2023 – save that date!

We will offer priority booking for exhibitors and session holders for the event so make sure you visit Elaina on the CTSI stand in Bristol to book your place, you don’t want to miss out.

Sponsors:

consumers, how we can build consumer confidence via regulatory innovation together, and insights into protecting consumers in a global marketplace.

Our plenaries and masterclasses include speakers from Government, the profession and key UK and international stakeholders. Alongside these, our programme features a range of seminars including the CTSI Race and Equalities Working Group, an ACTSO apprenticeship session as well as some of our regular session holders.

New and old friends We are looking forward to welcoming some fantastic new exhibitors this year, including the Natural Diamond Council and Brand Solution; our tabletop exhibition remains a cost-effective way of delivering the event free of charge to

www.JournalofTradingStandards.co.uk

members and the contribution that our exhibitors, session holders and sponsors make to the event remains invaluable.

Status International, a leading independent supplier of lighting and electrical accessories, joins us again as our main sponsor and will host the popular Awards Dinner on Thursday evening – have you booked your ticket?

We are thrilled that Civica, a global digital solutions provider, will sponsor the Welcome Drinks on the Wednesday; everyone is welcome so don’t miss out.

Finally, huge thanks to trueCall, a UK-based call monitoring service, which continues to be the sponsor of the notepads that you all find so useful for those all-important notes.

With Friday in mind, we have scheduled a programme to tackle some local priorities. We have speakers from

the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Animal and Plant Health Agency. There will also be sessions focusing on housing, capably facilitated by our Property Lead Officers, with speakers from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Propertymark and the redress schemes.

These are aimed at all enforcement officers, together with agents affected by recent and planned changes to legislation.

Have you registered? This one is not to be missed! n Ideas you want to share or need some help?

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

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Last Word

Where would we be without…

fair play Eleni Chalkidou

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

Consumers should be able to spend their hard-earned cash with confidence that they are being charged the same as the next person

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Instilling consumer confidence is a vital part of a healthy economy and a thriving retail sector, so why do some shops adopt practices that make their customers feel unsure about making a purchase?

Going into a shop, especially if you have children, can sometimes be an overwhelming experience, even more so if you are unfamiliar with the products on offer. If a consumer is approaching a purchase from a position of vulnerability – as we all do from time to time – this is particularly true.

Recently I went into London to visit The National Gallery with my nine-year-old boy wonder, Achilles. Walking through Piccadilly Circus, he spotted Fortnite Figure Pouches on a rotary display stand. “Please mummy, can I have one,

you can take it out of my savings?!” he pleads excitedly. I nod in his direction and tell him to check how much they cost. Unable to find a price, he picks one up and runs into the shop.

He re-emerges all deflated: “It’s probably a no, it’s £15,” he states. Now he’s got my interest. £15, for something I have never paid more than £5 for?!

In an ideal world, it wouldn’t have been necessary for Achilles to ask at all, as the price would have already been clearly and accurately displayed on the item in question.

Smelling a rat, I approached the shopkeeper myself with the pouch and asked for the price – only to be told it would cost £10.

So, the shopkeeper had told Achilles that the item was £15 – a price that even a nine-year-old would rightly balk at – but told me £10.

Treating pricing like a spin-the-wheel game show is no way to run a business; it is unfair, it stigmatises certain types of consumers, it undermines confidence and, last but by no means least, it goes against that most beloved of all trading standards tools, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs).

As UK consumers face the steepest rise in the cost of living for decades, and with the country still in the grip of the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic, it has never been more important that they are able to spend their hard-earned cash with confidence that they are being charged as much, or as little, as the next person – no matter who they are.

Without that most basic of retail principles, there is a real risk that shoppers could be penalised for how old they are, how they dress, their race, their gender, or a whole host of other things. It is important for consumers, for businesses, and for fair play itself that we live in a country where trading standards protects us from such unscrupulous practices. n

Summer 2022

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www.journaloftradingstandards.co.uk The magazine of the Chartered Trading Standards Institute

A CHANGING PROFESSION FOR A CHANGING WORLD

CTSI CONFERENCE The Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s Annual Professional Development Event 15 - 17 June 2022 The Mercure Grand, Bristol

www.tradingstandards.uk #CTSIConference