Specialist teams to target rogues

22 June 2011 Last updated at 13:45 GMT By Kevin Peachey Consumer affairs reporter, BBC News, Bournemouth Worried consumers will soon have calls taken by the Citizens Advice charity Rogue traders will be pursued by "hit-squads" of specialist trading standards officers amid a planned overhaul of the service's work.

Some smaller teams of officers, funded by councils, currently fail to take on cases that have straddled local authority boundaries.

Changes could create specialists targeting counterfeiters or rogue builders.

But these come against a background of funding cuts.

Movement

Consumer protection will be focused on help and support from Citizens Advice and enforcement by trading standards officers, under plans confirmed by the government on Tuesday.

A recent report from the National Audit Office claimed that the system to protect consumers from billions of pounds of scams was "fragmented and underequipped".

The government, in its consultation on proposed changes, said that some trading standards departments were avoiding action against rogue traders who moved from area to area.

"The absence of a clear boundary between responsibilities allows some local authorities effectively to opt out of enforcement against all but the most local of threats," the government paper suggested.

Targets

Local authority funding of trading standards is expected to fall from ?213m in 2009 to between ?140m and ?170m in 2014.

Ron Gainsford, chief executive of the Trading Standards Institute, which is holding its conference in Bournemouth, accepted that the service was expecting to do more with less.

This could see local trading standards departments acting as the lead team on particular issues, staffed by specialists.

They could be sent by a command team to specific cases, such as the 2012 Olympics or music festivals, to deal with counterfeiters, or certain areas to tackle rogue builders.

There would be some central funding for these teams, but local councillors would also be required to give the green light to the move.

Authorities may also approach insurance companies to underwrite the cost of large-scale prosecutions.

Consumer Minister Edward Davey, speaking to the BBC News website, said that the allocation of the enforcement role was "a vote of confidence" for trading standards.

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