Liverpool City Council In this feature restructure statutory duties endangering lives Making a stand When Liverpool City Council slashed its trading standards team by three-quarters and ignored warnings about meeting its statutory duties, former employee Stephanie Hudson decided enough was enough. Carina Bailey reports T he publication in August of an internal report by Liverpool City Council (LCC) is set to be a dening moment in trading standards history; for the rst time, it will suggest what the minimum requirements for a functioning trading standards service looks like, which in turn will inform how much funding the service requires. As all eyes remain trained on Merseyside for this elusive piece of the funding jigsaw, legal proceedings instigator Stephanie Hudson is proud to have placed herself and her home in the ring line, if it means that the citizens of Liverpool will be better protected. Until January this year, Hudson worked as the councils prosecutions coordinator in its former trading standards department but, after being served notice of redundancy as part of a major restructure, she decided to take voluntary redundancy 10 days before her 90-day notice period expired and mounted a long and expensive campaign for the countrys rst judicial review into the funding of trading standards. At a permission hearing in May, LCC made an undertaking at Manchester High Court to investigate whether it had acted unlawfully after the authority ploughed ahead with its plan to cut trading standards by three-quarters and amalgamate it with its licensing department last year despite warnings from its own staff that the restructure would render it impossible to full statutory obligations. Trading standards is under attack, says Hudson. My greatest fear is that the profession wont be in existence in ve years. It will simply be gone across the country, and once its gone you cant get it back and people will suffer as a consequence. Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand and say this is far enough, and no further. It [LCC] is in a hard place; money is tight. But that doesnt mean it can just dismiss trading standards. Over the lifetime of the last parliament, trading standards suffered heavy losses almost half its workforce has been lost from services up and down the country. And that was just round one. The next ve years are set to see even more stringent cuts to local authority budgets, and trading standards is in danger of losing yet more resource if the restructure in Liverpool is a measure of things to come. It was April 2014 when amalgamation of the trading standards and licensing departments was rst mooted. A two-month consultation period ensued, during which time Hudson presented the council with her suggestion for an alternative structure that gave a more evenhanded number of ofcers to each department and sacriced her own role saving the authority about 60 into the bargain. However, just ve days after her scheme was submitted, the council rejected it on the grounds of insufcient funding, despite it falling within the budget LCC had set itself. Hudson was devastated. I was angry that they could be so cavalier with peoples lives. Trading standards saves peoples lives; it protects people. It might sound melodramatic but the fact is, when an elderly person is ripped off, the monetary value might be small, but theyve been cheated and it can actually shorten their lives. She says it leaves people with a fear of doing anything they wont even tell their own families for fear their loved ones will think they cant cope and put them in a home. It gets to the stage where they give up living. They become frightened and feel they have no-one to turn to. They regard themselves as foolish and humiliated. But trading standards ofcers can reassure them thats simply not the case other people get ripped off, too. We will try and get a victims money back, and if we cant do that, we will stop them. Hudsons voice cracks as she recounts how, just before the restructure, an elderly woman was ripped off by a rogue trader selling mobility scooters. Sadly, the woman died before she could see justice done. Her daughter carried on with the case after her mothers death, bringing a photograph of her into trading standards during the case. Hudson says: All the victims knew it was unlikely theyd get their money back because the trader was a drunk and had gambled it all away, but all they wanted was justice. We helped to stop him. That to me is very, very important. You know these are vulnerable people that you are helping. You do it because there are some horrible people out there who do terrible things. The consultation at LCC ended in June 2014 and, by July, a decision had been made. I didnt feel that my alternative structure had been taken seriously, says Hudson. I didnt really feel then that it had been a proper consultation. It was treated as a fait accompli. The structure the council gave out was the structure and that was that. None of our queries about whether it was actually going to full our statutory duties seemed to be taken into account. The consultation didnt appear to consider anything. The main thrust of the argument was to cover statutory duties for weights and measures and food safety. The authority hadnt appeared to consider its duties under the EU regulations. Hudson fears the person dealing with the restructure didnt actually know what trading standards statutory duties were. Hudson adds: I am sympathetic. The money simply isnt there. We know the cuts are coming but, in consideration of that, the authority has to take into account its statutory duties. My greatest fear is that the profession wont be in existence in five years Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand and say this is far enough, and no further Trading standards is under attack Following its decision in July, the trading standards and licensing departments were amalgamated to form licensing and regulatory services which, according to Hudson, not only decimated the trading standards team, but eroded its brand and identity, too. Having the name is as important as having the bodies. It gives an ofcer an identity and pride in his or her job and profession, and it means people know youre there. In Liverpool, the remaining four trading standards ofcers (TSOs) are not only woefully under-resourced to full their statutory duties, but burdened with additional licensing responsibilities, too. According to Hudson, there are many areas where legal duties fall, including: weights and measures; food legislation; counterfeiting; consumer credit; consumer protection against unfair trading; and safety legislation. But, going by the experience of the remaining ofcers, Hudson believes the council has only taken account of weights and measures and food legislation duties. She says that, given the extent of the cuts to the team, they will only be able to cover these two areas both badly. Theres too few of them to do the work, because it involves meeting local groups, such as pensioners. Its not only about when people are ripped-off, its also about educating people about how they can protect themselves. None of that can be done. She is also unable to envisage how the authority will be able to carry out any enforcement into consumer credit issues, such as local payday lenders, and believes that no projects have been undertaken to check the accuracy of petrol pumps since the restructure took place. Hudson also questions the basic logic behind amalgamating the two departments. She says there are occasional crossovers, but believes the argument is thin. The work we do is very different. Our experience and qualications are also different. What makes this all the more upsetting is that, in the past, LCC has been somewhat of a trailblazer in trading standards issues, leading in underage sales, counterfeit goods, safety legislation under the General Products Safety Regulations and, when the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations came in, LCC was one of the rst authorities to take action. Its always been forward-thinking and thought about its citizens rst, but that has all changed now. It cant possibly function on the skeleton staff it has. They are overburdened with licensing work, so trading standards work takes a back seat. They have nothing in place to say what trading standards work they can do and how they can do it. Despite no longer being employed to do the job she adored, Hudson is proud to have been a trading standards ofcer, and will be eternally grateful to CTSI and Jonathan Kirk from 36 Bedford Row for the support they have given her throughout this process. There havent been any costs because CTSI agreed to indemnify me. It was amazingly brave of Leon Livermore. I cant say how incredibly grateful I am to Leon, to CTSI and the legal team. Jonathan Kirk did the work pro bono, we had a wonderful junior in Nadia, and Peter Mellett [of Cubism Law] was great, too. Had CTSI not taken that step, Hudson could have faced legal bills of 40,000 and lost her home to pay them. Trading standards isnt there anymore in Liverpool really. Thats why I did what I did. I felt I had to at least do something for the citizens of Liverpool, and try to stop it from happening elsewhere. I worry now that so many people have left the service and been redeployed elsewhere, and all that experience and knowledge will be lost forever. They will never go back up to 19 people in Liverpool but, if this investigation just gives Liverpool back a few more ofcers on the ground, it will have been worth it. LCC has three months to carry out its investigation and must publish the ndings on its website. NEVER GIVE UP I was angry that it could be so cavalier with peoples lives For services going through a similar experience, Hudson has the following advice: G Speak to CTSI G Be watchful about what the restructure involves G Point out the statutory duties that your authority is obliged to enforce G Look at whats happened in Liverpool Credits Published You might also like Carina Bailey is the editor of TS Today. Thursday 28 May, 2015 Rewind. Reset. 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