Agenda item

The Chair introduced Lord Harris of Haringey, Chair of National Trading Standards. Lord Harris outlined the work of National Trading Standards in tackling regional and national cases of consumer detriment. Although the he majority of resources for trading standards / consumer detriment work are spent via local trading standards teams, NTS has a £13m budget for addressing cross-border issues (and a further £3m grant for animal feed work). Lord Harris emphasised the importance of local trading standards for providing intelligence and hosting national teams.

The Chair thanked Lord Harris for his presentation and asked Ellie Greenwood, Senior Advisor, to outline the LGA’s engagement with National Trading Standards. Ellie Greenwood outlined the LGA’s ongoing engagement on trading standards issues including:

·         cyber-crime

·         lobbying around the Investigatory Powers Bill and the importance of local authorities having access to communications data

·         dealing with a specific concern raised by a council in relation to telephone scams, which would involve working with the NTS scambusters team and organisations such as Age UK.

The Chair then invited members to ask questions, and the following points were made in the ensuing discussion::

·         NTS uses intelligence to target suspect crates and produce at ports;

·         NTS is working with local trading standards teams to ensure the integrity of the feed chain in relation to food and livestock and ensure continued access to EU markets;

·         Members praised the work of the NTS illegal money lending teams;

·         NTS is in the early stages of a case to tackle the use of copycat websites (eg, for passport or European Health Insurance Card applications) and is in discussion with the government and search engine companies about the prominence of links to these sites;

·         Members raised concerns about cold calling zones and the extent to which councils are able to enforce these;

·         some court sentences seemed relatively lenient, which could be addressed by raising awareness of the impact of cases on the vulnerable, which could leave people in a position where they needed care. 

·         Members would welcome consideration of how the information provided by Lord Harris would be more regularly and widely circulated among councillors.

In response to a question about funding Lord Harris explained that NTS would not charge local authorities for services. However, the likely impact of a significant reduction in funding from BIS would be that NTS would have to drop whole areas of work, such as their estate agent work and illegal money lending.

Decision:

The Board noted the discussion.