Will trading standards cuts hit 'policing' of agents?

The consumer body Which? is leading complaints about cuts in local authority trading standards budgets which are happening at the same time as those departments are expected to police estate agency and letting agency regulations.

A new report - commissioned jointly by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Trading Standards Institute, and researched and written by members of the University of Birmingham Institute of Local Government Studies - concluded that in recent years local council trading standards departments have had to manage spending cuts of, in some cases, 40 per cent.

This has happened at the same time as trading standards officers at council level have had increased responsibility to police estate and lettings agents, and at the same time as the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 have been extended to cover estate agents and letting agents.

During the same period that the Office of Fair Trading’s overview of the agency industry was shifted to the Powys council-based National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team.

Now Which? executive director Richard Lloyd says enough is enough. 

“It’s extremely worrying that the government’s own research has found trading standards are being run down, losing vital knowledge and expertise” he says. 

“The government must now set out how it will ensure consumers are properly protected, especially at a time when they have asked trading standards to do even more and take the lead in national consumer law enforcement.”

The report highlighted the increasingly reactive role of trading standards - responding to complaints rather than proactively policing standards - and the specific problem of not being staffed sufficiently to administer ‘approved trader’ schemes where companies are expected to be accredited.

http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/2208-will-trading-standards-cuts-hit-policing-of-agents