I was inspired to start this blog after reading the blogs of other public sector workers providing an insight into their respective fields. I think there is widespread misunderstanding amongst the public about what Trading Standards actually do so hopefully this blog will address that (or at the very least provide an excuse for why something isn’t being done).
The kinds of things I envisage writing about are
– trading standards issues in the news
– providing an explanation about what Trading Standards actually do
– explaining why Trading Standards may or may not deal with an issue
– discussing the law and regulatory issues in general
– keep a record of enforcement action taken by trading standards departments
Each Trading Standards department is part of a local authority (council) and each department will operate in a slightly different way depending on various factors (such as the size of the department or the priorities set by the local authority). No two Trading Standards department will operate in exactly the same way but generally speaking we all enforce the same laws and provide similar services.
Given that my experiences are my own I cannot talk for every single trading standards officer as we all have different jobs with different priorities, but hopefully I am in touch enough to provide a somewhat representative view for our profession.
If you are involved in trading standards/consumer protection work and would like to write a guest article please do contact me.
In the interests of protecting my job and being able to talk openly I will of course be blogging anonymously.