Trading standards core purpose and the loss of weights and measures expertise In this feature l metrology l consumer detriment l underweight goods Going back to our roots Is trading standards in danger of losing its metrology expertise and, therefore, its raison detre? Louise Parfitt reports T rading standards is going through something of an identity crisis. Responsible for enforcing more than 250 pieces of legislation, trading standards officers now have more pies than they have fingers. Despite the recent slashing of their budgets and departments, most are still trying to cover work done by a much biggerteam protecting consumers, advising businesses and prosecuting those who flout the law. Its hard to decry work that protects vulnerable people from scams, or that prevents faulty goods from being sold as presents for children, but amid all this frantic activity, is trading standards losing sight of its core purpose as an inspector of weights and measures? The system is crumbling around our ears, laments David Templeton, trading standards divisional officer at South Lanarkshire Council. Weights and measures work is our bread and butter, but we risk losing expertise in the very thing we were set up to enforce. An ageing workforce, combined with the change in professional qualification to a module route which means you can now qualify as a trading standard officers without becoming a weights and measures inspector is a ticking time bomb, claims Templeton. The figures bear this out. In 1963, there were 880 full-time equivalent weights and measures inspectors in the UK; by 2014, there were just 257 and even that figure was a decrease of 47 people from the previous year. H OW Tr ADING STANDArDS AS In simpler times, a weights and A prOFES S ION WAS BOrN measures inspector did just that he or Inspectors of weights and measures were officially she inspected weights and scales to make appointed by acts of Parliament in 1834 and 1835. sure they were accurate. Then came Their work was mainly concerned with checking responsibility for checking quality as well the physical weights, measures and scales used by as quantity, safety as well as accuracy, traders, including publicans and shopkeepers. consumer protection as well as In the late 1960s and 1970s, there was a calibration and somewhere along the revolution in consumer protection, with the Trade way, weights and measures inspectors Descriptions Act 1968, the Consumer Credit Act 1974 became trading standards officers, with and, later, the Consumer Protection Act 1987 giving more responsibility for consumer safety to weights aremit ranging from animal welfare to and measures inspectors. website scams. More legislation followed from the European So, why has metrology fallen so far Union, including the General Product Safety down the list and should we be Regulations. The role of weights and measures reconsidering our priorities? inspectors expanded to encompass investigating and prosecuting the activities of organised criminal gangs, such as the sale of illicit goods and unsexy sell In 1963, there were 880 full-time equivalent weights and measures inspectors in the UK. By 2014, there were just 257 Legal metrology falls directly to trading standards no other local authority When the Consumer Protection from Unfair department has responsibility for it. It is Trading Regulations replaced the Trade the professions unique selling point, so Descriptions Act in 2008, officers were given more scope to tackle unfair and aggressive practices. in a tough market of austerity and budget Alongside this, many departments now provide cuts why is trading standards not assured advice as part of a Primary Authority pushing this when showing its value to scheme, educate consumers through initiatives the powers that be? such as Buy with Confidence, and take part Metrology isnt a sexy sell stopping in government projects including fitting callruthless rogues from stealing the savings blocking devices to prevent nuisance phone calls. of much-loved grandparents is much more of a crowd-pleaser. But perhaps this is where trading standards is going wrong. Someone losing a few pence when buying a pint of milk may not be seen as equivalent to the harm caused by a boiler-room scam, conning people of out of thousands of pounds, but argues Templeton the scale of detriment to consumers and the economy is astronomical when considered as a whole. In 2015, 66,000 packs of garlic bread were removed from Tesco stores in Huntly and Inverurie, after Aberdeenshire Trading Standards found that packs produced by Bakkavor Foods were under the stated weight of 290g, with one weighing less than 230g. The value of the products removed was 93,000 and, as Templeton points out, the total detriment to consumers could be huge, even if only a small percentage of the packs produced were below weight. You have to remember that this company produces 5,000 products. If its weights system is not accurate for one product, it is highly BEIS was una b l e to likely the same standards are used for other items, so the provide a co m me nt on the governm scale of the actual detriment could be enormous. ent s prioritie s for trading s Templeton says he receives examples from John OGroats tandards an d wh e t h e r t h e to Lands End, showing the need to keep metrology at the profession is at ri s k o f l o s i n g forefront of trading standards work. If we had more people its weights a nd measures e doing weights and measures and more reliable data to base xper t i s e decisions on the picture for trading standards would be completely different. Back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, we had a surveillance system in place, keeping traders on their toes. But, in the 90s, our role got extended without additional resources and so we task staff to do other things. Then technology changes, and new equipment comes in, but traders might not be competent to set it up or because they havent seen an inspector for years they think they can shave off a few grams here, or millilitres there, without anyone noticing. Innocently or deliberately, we get problems entering the system. But because it isnt a priority, fewer services are allocating resources to it, so we never find anything wrong, so it cant be a problem, so we dont need to allocate resources and the downward spiral continues. Trading standards is intelligence- and complaints-led, but if weights and measures work isnt being done, the intelligence isnt being gathered. Consumers dont have evidence of a metrology issue in the same way they do if, say, a relative is scammed, so there are fewer complaints then it becomes even less of a priority. A W EIGHT Y IS SuE Weve now got a situation where little Routine food inspection visits to retail premises weights and measures work is being within the Cheshire East authority over the past 12 done, because people who are in charge months have found numerous pre-packed goods of trading standards dont realise there that do not meet their stated weight. are problems, with resources being Trading standards inspector Jay Moran came diverted elsewhere, Templeton explains. across an example of consumers being shortBut when we do the work, we find big changed during a recent inspection of a farm problems, such as with the garlic bread shop. Onsite tests of 26 bags of flour found that and thats just one product, from one none met their stated quantities. retailer, in one small area of the UK. Under regulations for packaged goods, The latest Department for Business, certain products can have negative error allowances, but in this case there was an Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) accumulative discrepancy of around a third of National Measurement Strategy for the a bag across each tested. UK states that: Each year in the UK, Moran is working with the relevant home around 622bn of goods are sold on the authorities to enable the issue to be investigated basis of the measurement of their and corrected. quantity. This figure is from a study done by Deloitte and is eight years old. But, says Templeton, just imagine if there was a one per cent error in that figure caused by non-compliance or fraud that would equate to 6.2bn of detriment, nearly double what the National Trading Standard Scams team deals with annually! Not that Templeton wants to dilute the importance of the work of other trading standards teams he simply feels that metrology should be reprioritised as a national issue as a matter of urgency, before the expertise is lost forever. Weights and measures work is the most technical thing we do, he says. If officers are constantly being sent to do other things, it is difficult to pick it back up again and they wont be as good at it. money laundering. onference, At C ill be asking CTSI w s ng standard i whether trad r agencies e rforming oth is pe oice heard rv s. Make you role event. Book ttending the by a . now at www your place ndards.uk/ tradingsta ference2017 co n Toxic cocktail Templeton believes that a toxic cocktail of central and local government changes, a lack of leadership from the government, mission creep and budget cuts is responsible for pushing weights and measures far down the trading standards remit. There has been a complete abrogation of responsibility by central government in relation to trading standards, he says. The profession is being tasked with more issues as it tries to argue its value, but weve not been given the resource so something has to give. Local issues, such as underage tobacco sales, are visible and tangible, and present a human face, so the localcouncil prioritises that over weights and measures work. But consumers lack the means to check whether the contents of their shopping basket, or the petrol pump, are short-changing them. Templeton is adamant that trading standards should start saying no to things or better still, not get involved in the first place, especially with issues that, he believes, are matters for the police, such as dealing with the sale of legal highs. We are not the fourth emergency service or social workers in disguise, he says. We should stick to our core function and do it as well as we possibly can. Credits Louise Parfitt is a writer for TS Today. Images: iStock.com/johnwoodcock To share this page, in the toolbar click on You might also like Dont milk it December 2015