Reducing Red Tape Initiative to be Trialled on Warwickshire Businesses
Warwickshire County Council Trading Standards Service is trialling a new Government initiative that aims to reduce the number of routine planned inspections Warwickshire businesses receive.
The Retail Enforcement Pilot aims to co-ordinate and streamline routine inspections carried out locally by Trading Standards, Environmental Health, and Fire & Rescue Services. Combined with better targeting and performance framework setting by central government the initiative could lead to fewer planned routine inspections whilst enhancing consumer and worker protection.
Noel Hunter, Director of Warwickshire Trading Standards Service said:
‘If all the services in Warwickshire that carry out routine inspections can plan together, this may mean that in the future, a business that for example might have normally received several visits instead only receives a single visit.
And by doing so we can then release precious resources to enable officers to spend more time addressing local concerns and priorities such as contributing to local economic regeneration, targeting rogue traders and running more intelligence led enforcement campaigns.’
The initiative will be highlighted at a conference entitled ‘Better Regulation – More or Less? which opens this week. The TSI/LACORS Year Ahead Leadership Conference will be held in Stratford upon Avon on 2nd and 3rd February and will be attended by the Consumer Minister Gerry Sutcliffe MP.
The Retail Enforcement Pilot has devised a range of ways of better informing and educating businesses of their regulatory obligations and enhancing the essential role local officers play in advising and assisting businesses. The pilot has also created a single unified joint risk assessment model which simplifies five current models. The risk model also provides a strategic planning tool to allow local officer discretion for targeting precious enforcement resources to where it will have most beneficial impact for local businesses, workers and consumers.
The Pilot is being run in two local authority areas. In Warwickshire the County Trading Standards and Fire services are working collaboratively with Environmental Health Services at Warwick and Stratford-upon-Avon District Councils and North Warwickshire Borough Council. The London Borough of Bexley is also involved, sharing the work of the pilot and testing systems from the perspective of a unitary authority.
The Pilot is due to report at the end of March 2006.