Advice, Business & Communities

Consumer Advice - Consumer Advice in Hampshire is now provided by Consumer Direct South East. However, they will refer complex enquiries or those requiring further action to Hampshire Trading Standards. Consumer Direct is a telephone and online consumer advice service, that is supported by local authorities in the South East and by the Office of Fair Trading.

• Contact information for Consumer Advice

Business Advice - Guidance on how to comply with trading standards law is freely available to all businesses operating in Hampshire. We can help with advice on a full range of law, for example: civil and criminal law; quality assurance; standards; unfair competition; labelling and advertising.

• Contact information for Business Advice

Talks

The Protecting Older People (POP) team give talks to raise awareness of doorstep crime.

These cover cold calling and scams.

If you would like a talk to your group or club please email doorstep.crime@hants.gov.uk or phone 01962 833620. We also offer Safe and Sound books and doorstickers.

See Safe and Sound for more information.

See No Cold Calling Zones web site

Safety and Standards Team

This team has four key roles:

Product Safety - This involves work with a wide range of European and UK legislation designed to protect consumers and help businesses (such as the safety of toys, electrical goods, furniture, personal protective equipment, nightwear, gas appliances, cosmetics, and recreational craft). Product Safety rules and CE marking help ensure only safe products are sold to the public, while at the same time opening up the Single Market for Hampshire companies to sell their products freely in other countries. Officers check for unsafe imported consumer products in the distribution chain, goods on sale in the shops and offer compliance and product recall advice, if required, to business.

Officers may investigate more serious product safety complaints under criminal legislation, or may forward details to relevant 'home or primary' local authority. (they will have an overview of the business based in their area and are likely to know of any other similar concerns and the likelihood of compliance) Actions will include advice, warnings, voluntary surrender of goods or withdrawals from the market, goods being suspended from supply, product recalls, serving compliance notices, and matters can be taken through the courts.

• Safety Sampling

Age Restricted Goods - We work to minimise the impact on young people's health and adverse effects on the community's quality of life which can arise from the abuse of age-restricted products like alcohol, cigarettes, solvents, lighter refills, spray paints, fireworks and video/PC games. Business advice and enforcement (test purchasing) are used to ensure these products aren't sold to young people. New applications and variations to existing licences to supply alcohol are checked to ensure sufficient regard is paid to protecting children from harm.

Tobacco labelling, advertising and promotion are also checked for compliance with the regulations.

• Underage Sales Information

Environmental Safety - Businesses selling or storing petrol, poisons, and explosives are registered or licensed and inspected for  safety. Records of derelict petrol storage tanks are kept and building works on sites monitored to assist builders and property developers. Environmental labelling of pesticides, chemicals, and dangerous substances, together with minimising excess packaging, add to the team's substantial contribution to environmental safety.

• Petroleum licensing

Metrology - This role helps ensure all weighing and measuring equipment used in the County to sell goods and services is accurate. This includes such consumer transactions as buying petrol, heating oils, packaged goods and sales of bulk consumer and industrial products too. Recently we have begun checking the accuracy of medical weighing in hospitals. The service also verifies new and repaired equipment to ensure accuracy.

• Metrology Information

Fair Trading Team

The Fair Trading Team enforces a wide range of laws dealing with unfair and deceptive commercial practices ranging from counterfeit goods to clocked cars, scam mail to doorstep crime, and aggressive debt collection practices to misleading price indications. By adopting an 'intelligence-led' approach to enforcement we ensure resources are used to best effect to tackle the current issues. All sources of information, but in particular complaints, are used to identify trends and problem traders. By careful analysis of this information officers are tasked to focus on the issues or traders causing the most concern.

Five key priorities have been identified:

• Doorstep Crime

• Safeguarding Vulnerable Consumers

• Fraud and Deceptive Trading Practices

• Intellectual Property Crime

• Supporting Business

Working with a business is generally seen as the best way of achieving compliance, but in the more serious cases, for example, those involving dishonesty or wilful neglect, investigations will be undertaken and more formal action considered. In these cases the full range of enforcement powers are available. Depending on the circumstances, these will include seeking an assurance from the business as to their future conduct, sending a warning letter, obtaining a court order preventing similar conduct in the future, issuing a caution or ultimately taking a prosecution. Such actions can be taken against the owners of the business, but in many cases individual employees can be liable too. Offending goods, for example counterfeit items, are likely to be seized and subsequently destroyed and in the most serious of cases offenders can be jailed.

Where it can be shown that an offender has benefited from their criminal conduct consideration will also be given to commencing a financial investigation and possible confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. This is to make sure crime committed against consumers does not pay.

In 2004 a Quick Response Team was set up to deal with doorstep criminals who target the elderly and vulnerable by cold calling offering to carry out property repairs, lay driveways, provide gardening services or even power clean roofs and patios. Very often the work is poor quality or unnecessary and the price charged is excessive. In some cases the trader may harass, or pressurise their victim into making payment. Officers are available to attend at short notice and intervene while the trader is still at the victim’s home or in the area. In many cases officers can intervene to prevent payment. The victims, often frightened by the experience, receive follow up advice on how to make sure they are not targeted again. Residents in the surrounding area are warned to be on their guard - both by a messaging service through voluntary groups such as Neighbourhood Watch and by leaflet drops to other properties in the vicinity. Appropriate enforcement action is taken against the offenders wherever possible. Since being set up, the Quick Response Team has attended over 320 incidents of doorstep crime and through intervention has directly saved consumers more than £348,000.

And it is not just in relation to doorstep crime that consumers suffer. In 2008 the Fair Trading Team recognised many other consumers suffered loss as a result of their vulnerability and began providing specialist assistance in selected cases. Consumers may be vulnerable for many differing reasons, for example, due to their age, physical capability, mental health or financial position, but the help provided has been crucial. Whilst only a small number of cases can be taken up each year, during the first three years of providing this service officers have negotiated refunds and reduced liabilities totalling over £340,000 for vulnerable consumers who would never have been able to do so for themselves.

Food and Agriculture (Animal Health) Team

The Food and Agriculture Team promotes and enforces food, agriculture and animal health laws.

The team works to ensure food is correctly and accurately labelled, that it contains legal ingredients and that any claims made are truthful. It also deals with national food safety alerts and issues press releases to inform local businesses and consumers about product recalls or hazard warnings.

A promotion campaign on Healthy Eating started in 2005 and offers advice to consumers to help them understand food labels.

Our Animal Health officers regularly visit farms, abattoirs, and transit points to check that the health of livestock is maintained. Livestock movements are checked and monitored so that animals can be quickly traced in the event of an outbreak of serious notifiable disease, such as foot and mouth or swine fever. We also inspect animal feed producers and test the quality of fertilisers and feeding stuffs.

• Food, Agriculture and Animal Health

• Feed Hygiene - Guidance on the Feed (Hygiene & Enforcement)(England) Regulations 2005

Buy With Confidence Scheme

In response to concerns about 'rogue traders' which are often highlighted in the media, Hampshire Trading Standards has taken a ground-breaking step by putting together the Buy With Confidence Scheme. The scheme provides consumers with a list of reliable local businesses which have proved their commitment to trading fairly. Every business listed has undergone a series of detailed checks before being approved as a member of the scheme.