Issue - meetings

The Board received a report from the Director of Public Health, which provided an update on the work of the Trading Standards Service over the past 12 months and the contribution this work had made to the Council’s public protection and community safety objectives.

          It was noted that the Trading Standards team provided a wide range of statutory services to protect consumers and legitimate businesses from unfair, misleading or unsafe trading practices. Amongst others, these services included weights and measures, product safety, age restricted sales, explosives, scams awareness, fair trading, doorstep crime, e-crime, fraud, counterfeit and illicit goods – including tobacco and vapes and animal feeding stuffs.  The team also provided an enhanced consumer advice service to help consumers enforce their own civil consumer rights.

          The report focussed on the following services which contributed to protecting public health and safeguarding children and adults:

• scams awareness;
• doorstep crime;
• tobacco and vapes;
• age restricted sales;
• consumer advice and the Citizens Advice Consumer Helpline;
• product safety; and
• iCAN consumer alert network and Facebook.

The report also provided case studies for each of the services, which the Board noted.

Following discussions and arising questions from Members, some additional information was noted:

·       the secure “159” helpline provides direct access to a bank’s fraud department, enabling anyone to report suspicious calls or seek help if they believe they may be the victim of a scam;

·       there was no accreditation scheme for compliant shop owners, particularly those selling tobacco or vaping products. Such premises were required to hold licenses, which were subject to review as part of regulatory oversight; and

·       concerns were raised about scams/fake products which were promoted via Facebook.  Trading Standards advise consumers not to make any purchases via Facebook as consumer protection laws may be limited.  In particular, third-party sites linked from Facebook were not covered by Facebook's Purchase Protection.

          RESOLVED: That the Board:

1)    note the report;

2)     agree to follow the Halton Trading Standards page on Facebook to increase awareness.