In this feature l budget cuts l self-funding l consumer issues CONFERENCE 2015 Trading standards officers must make difficult choices to survive further funding cuts. rob Coston reports Moneys worth W here is trading standards going? On which areas should services be focusing their limited resources? These hot topics were explored in the second plenary session at Conference this year. Facilitator Matt Allwright broadcaster, friend to the profession and recipient of a Hero Award used a Question Time format to tease out the opinions of a diverse panel of experts. Facilitator: Difficult choices Matt Allwright, television presenter and Despite attempts to focus on philosophical issues, much of the consumer journalist discussion was about funding. Sara Barry, head of the trading standards service and community Panellists: safety in Lincolnshire, said budget reductions have forced her Sharon wright, entrepreneur service to limit its ambitions: Before the cuts, we had staff in various and inventor l Nisha specialist roles; since, weve had to use our staff much more flexibly, Arora, senior director, giving them the training and the confidence to tackle the issues that consumer enforcement at have the biggest impact and cause the greatest harm. the Competitions and Markets We pick the things where we can do the most good. For areas Authority l Peter watt, reader in public sector economics like assay work, we have to ask: Wheres the risk and harm? at the Institute of Local Weve had to put all our efforts into protecting life and limb. Government Studies l Steve Steve Thomas, chief executive of the Welsh Local Government Thomas CBE, chief executive, Association, agreed that officers have to choose which functions Welsh Local Government to focus on and which to put aside, but he took a different Association l Sara Barry, head of position on where to apply resources. the trading standards service and Trading standards receives only 20m in funding across the community safety in Lincolnshire whole of Wales and Thomas worries that even this small pot is under threat. Because of that, trading standards needs to cast itself as a preventative service, one that stops people from having to get into other services like the NHS, he said. Although using funds for prevention could, theoretically, protect more people from harm, Allwright made the point that this approach might resultin repeat offenders remaining at large and free to commit crimes. Thomas responded that, with low tax rates and high public expectations ofpublic services, officers may have to concentrate on meeting the statutoryminimums. As if present consumer problems werent enough, Nisha Arora, senior director with responsibility for consumer enforcement at the Competitions and Markets Authority, said that trading standards and its partners also needed to devote some resources to looking for the problems of tomorrow. Because were looking at market-wide issues, we need to be ahead of the curve and look at all sorts of issues that might affect consumers down the line, she told the audience. For example, we recently did some work in the higher education sector because even though nobody is jumping up and down and saying students are having consumer protection problems in a sector that is increasingly marketised, were finding many students are not gettingwhat they have paid for and are not being properly protected. For areas like assay work, we have to ask: Wheres the risk and harm? We have had to put all our efforts into protecting life and limb Panellists Steve Thomas CBE (above) and entrepreneur Sharon Wright (right) Big up the benefits The panel suggested solutions such as structural reform and working in partnership with other bodies for fulfilling as much of the trading standards remit as possible in the face of the cuts. All agreed that overcoming the funding problem is a key issue. Dr Peter Watt, reader in public sector economics at the Institute of Local Government Studies and one of the authors of a recent report on the impact of trading standards during challenging times, suggested that stopping the cuts would be a good solution. This could be achieved by showing politicians the benefits of a well-funded service. The first step, according to Watt, is to find ways of quantifying the cost of cuts: A lot of the benefits of trading standards are implicit, he said. Theyre very real and important, but dont surface as financial figures. If youre being pressed to achieve savings, you need to present figures that spell out the benefits being lost. For example, somebody might be prevented from buying alcohol or cigarettes while underage, and the payoff is that they might avoid a lifetime of illness. What would you pay to have a good life rather than an early death? A huge amount. But those numbers dont go through the public accounts, so theres a danger of such benefits being lost. get the message across Watt made the point that, once the benefits are quantified, trading standards needs to do a better job of communicating them to politicians and the public. He explained: I tell my students when writing essays: Say what youre going to say, then say it, then say what youve said. To get the message across, trading standards should talk about what the benefits are going to be for a particular activity, do it, then say what the benefits were. Its a communication exercise through political channels to sell the benefits, and it has to go on continually; with new people coming into government, the message needs to be reiterated. Thomas emphasised that trading standards and other bodies such as environmental health should come together and present themselves, cohesively, as preventative services to get the message across to central government. Facilitator Matt Allwright (below) and panellist Nisha Arora (left) Money makes money If it isnt possible to stop the cuts in the way that Watt describes, Sharon Wright an entrepreneur with a background in health and safety, who wasmade famous by her appearance on Dragons Den suggested another way to prevent reductions to services. By assigning officers to areas in whichthey can earn a fee from businesses to support their upkeep,departments might be able to avoid crippling redundancies. Such self-funding officers could perform less profitable, but more socially important duties whenever possible. For businesses, the common thought when you get a call from trading standards is: What have I done wrong? That perception has to be removed, she explained. Looking at trading standards as a business person, I see it has expertise and knowledge that nobody else has there is no competition. You need to use this to make money and support yourselves. Allwright asked whether she would be willing to spend her businesss money to better understand regulations. Her answer was an unequivocal yes: When creating my product, I wanted to stay on the right side of health and safety, and I wanted to have a good reputation to find out where Im going wrong and how to improve. Im prepared to pay for that and a lot of other people are too. You dont have to make a profit, but you can use the money to support and to build the service. Money is going to keep on reducing in all government sectors, which is why you have to bring another income into the business of trading standards to support all the important work that you do. What would you pay to have a good life rather than an early death? A huge amount. But those numbers dont go through the public accounts, so theres danger of such benefits being lost root of all evil? Panellists Peter Watt (top), Sara Barry (above left) and facilitator Matt Allwright (above, far right) debate the issues The response to these suggestions was mixed. There used to be a lot of time to explain to businesses what their responsibilities are, but with resource cut-backs weve had to reduce that. Were looking at a charging process where we might give an hour free, but afterwards the service is paid for on a contract or pay-asyou-go basis, said Barry. She later qualified this, saying: There are some authorities that make me very nervous because theyre putting most of their efforts into cost recovery and have swung away from enforcement and public protection. Ashead of service, it really is like walking a tightrope, trying to get the balance right between supporting businesses and protecting the most vulnerable in our society. Allwright made the point that the public are less likely to need protection from the responsible businesses that are willing to pay for advice than the ones that would wilfully ignore it. In support of Wrights position, however, the television presenter noted that the BBC needs to make programmes such as Top Gear to fund shows such as Watchdog. During the Q&A session, meanwhile, one of the delegates expressed his belief that trading standards is about public protection, not revenue generation, and that changing that would require a negative cultural shift in the service. In response, Wright argued that every service is struggling just to keep its head above water at the moment and that survivalmust come before the desire to spend all available resources on public protection. Ultimate agreement The panellists all had their own views on the future and priorities of the service, but there was general agreement on one point officers are performing vital functions and the profession is worth fighting for. Thestruggle for money is worthwhile because it means officers can keep ondoing what they love: protecting the public. Allwright summed it up: The shroud of local government sometimes hides the incredible passion that people have for the job. I would say, as a broadcaster, be passionate about what you do and dont hide it. Please share it with other people! Credits Published You might also like Rob Coston is a reporter for TS Today Monday 3 August, 2015 The right move? 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