Trading Standards

In the United Kingdom, Trading Standards are the local authority departments, formerly known as Weights and Measures, that enforce consumer protection legislation.[1]

Sometimes, the Trading Standards enforcement functions of a local authority are performed by part of a larger department which enforces a wide range of other legislation: environmental health, health and safety, licensing and so on. These departments investigate commercial organisations that trade outside the law or in unethical ways. They attempt to remedy breaches by advice or by formal enforcement action.

History

They were originally labelled as Weights and Measures Departments because their primary function was to maintain the integrity of commercial weighing and measuring by routine testing of equipment and goods. Other legislation was allocated to them as time went on.

Function

They now deal with more diverse issues under a wide variety of Acts, Orders and Codes of Practice, as set out by central government, the Food Standards Agency. Such legislation includes the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, the Consumer Protection Act 1987, the Consumer Credit Act 1974, the Food Safety Act 1990, the Price Marking Order 2004 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Recent priorities include prevention of sales of counterfeit goods, sales of tobacco and alcohol to under-age buyers, and action to prevent exploitation of vulnerable consumers by scams and doorstep crime. In 2017, the Trading Standards of Somerset, Devon and Torbay donated 5000 items of counterfeit clothes to the charity Planet Zero after the clothes were seized and rebranded.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Trading standards". go.walsall.gov.uk. Walsall MBC. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  2. ↑ "Thousands of fake designer clothes handed to charity". Devon Live. 2017-06-29. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
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