Government plans for reform - commentary, consultations and responses
The Government’s ideas are leading to radical affects on local government structures and services that we are starting to see. Early indications in Vince Cable’s paper suggested that trading standards and citizens advice are frontline, crucial pillars.
At the same time we are losing the machinery of local government and can expect to see a completely new way of doing things emerge from this Spring 2012 into 2013-2014.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is creating a mechanism where trading standards can manage its own affairs through a National Trading Standards Board. Shared services, mutuals and service outsourcing will all feature, with no single solution for trading standards and public protection.
Consumer Landscape - empowering consumers
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills used the TSI annual conference to launch its consultation:
Empowering and Protecting Consumers - consultation on institutional changes for the provision of consumer information, advice, education, advocacy and enforcement.
Take part, express your view. The consultation ends in September 2011.
Click here to read the document (638kb)
Consumer Insurance Law Reform
Click here to view the Minister's statement
Citizens Advice and TSI letters
A joint statement of intent has been issued by TSI and Citizens Advice. The letter sets out framework of how consumer policy will be delivered in the new landscape following Government consultation in June. TSI will be consulting with its members shortly to gauge member's views. Click here to view the document
A letter has been issued from Citizens Advice about its proposed delivery model for consumer advice. Click here to view the document
Joint Statement of Committment
A joint statement of committment was launched at the TSI annual conference in June 2011 by TSI, LBRO and CIEH
TSI, LBRO and CIEH, working with devolved nations, national regulators, local government and business will act together to maintain and support the essential elements of the regulatory landscape and to rationalise and streamline existing systems of professional support and network communication.
Our overall aim will always be to create clearer, more efficient and sustainable systems to achieve the best outcomes sought by local, devolved and UK governments for everyone who relies on effective regulation.
In particular we will provide leadership in the following areas:
- Support to officers: Professional Competence
- Support to business: Home Authority
- Support for networks: Professional policy/advisory groups
- Support for advisers: Accessible advice via websites
Click here to view the document
Budget 2012
The Government confirmed its commitment to "review the stock of existing regulation to scrap unnecessary regulation and reduce business burdens..."
For the Chancellor's speech, HM Treasury press release, and Budget Document click here
Budget 2011
There was plenty of interest in The Plan for Growth, from primary authorities to under-age sales. Read the document here.
For a summary of the document, highlighting information relevant to trading standards, click here for the PDF.
Edward Davey, Minister for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs spoke at the Citizens Advice Consumer Empowerment Debate on Monday 7th March. He said
"getting consumer policy right is vitally important to citizens and business... consumers are a vital part of the UK economy. They play an essential role in incentivising business efficiency and innovation, and therefore fuelling economic growth".
Read his speech that includes an explanation of the consumer landscape.
Peter Vicary-Smith, chief of Which? has raised concerns about the future of consumer protection in the hands of Trading Standards and Citizens Advice. Read the Daily Mail article here.
Eric Pickles has warned local authorities that he will stop them by law if they try to cut the funding of charities by more than the cut in their own funding - This could be achieved by adding the necessary provisions to the Localism Bill.
He made these comments during a speech to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations Annual Conference on Tuesday 1st March.
Big Society and Local Authority Funding
House of Lords Oral Questions and Answers on Monday 28th February - Asked by Lord Dubs what assessment the Government had made of the effect of cuts in local government spending on their big society proposals, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham) replied:
"The challenge the country faces from the public finance mess left by the previous Government means that local government has had to take its share of the burden required to reduce the deficit. Local authorities, however, now have control over virtually all of the grant that they receive from central government. Therefore, they have choices as to how they manage their budgets, the areas that they protect and the priorities that they set. The big society is a wide concept of social action, community empowerment and public service reform that is embedded in localism."
The first ever central review of councils’ statutory duties has been announced by the Minister for Decentralisation, Communities and Local Government.
More than 1,200 legal duties appear on an initial list and could be repealed giving councils more freedom and discretion to serve local community needs.
The Minister, Greg Clark, said “historically Whitehall has prescribed how councils should conduct their business. As a result hundreds of accumulated legal requirements have become attached to the functions councils undertake”.
See Your Forum to put forward your views
The Public Bodies Bill is to make provision for conferring powers on Ministers of the Crown in relation to certain public bodies and offices, to confer powers on Welsh Ministers in relation to environmental public bodies, to make provision in relation to forestry, to make provision about amendment of Schedule 1 to the Superannuation Act 1972; and for connected purposes.
Keep up-to-date here with the Bill, all relevant documents and the Bill's progress.
The House of Commons Public Administration Committee has published a report "Smaller Government: Shrinking the Quango State" attacking the management, lack of meaningful consultation and ill-defined tests that the Government used in conducting the review of public bodies.
House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee Report
TSI Chief Executive Ron Gainsford said 'this report serves to further illustrate the significance, scale and difficulty of the programme the Coalition Government has quickly embarked upon to review arm's length bodies, increase accountability and achieve austerity savings'.
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills business plan
TSI President Baroness Crawley's letter to the leaders of councils (PDF 150KB) expressing concern about the effect of the comprehensive spending review on the trading standards service.
BIS statement: Reform of competition and consumer bodies
Included in the announcement on 14 October were proposals to strengthen the competition regime, by bringing together the Competition Commission (CC) and the competition functions of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to form a single competition and market authority.
This new body would be responsible for merger regulation, market investigations, cartel and antitrust cases, as well as a number of functions with respect to the regulated utilities.
The Government has also carried out a review of the landscape of consumer protection bodies, and will publish a consultation early next year with proposals to streamline and transfer the functions of Consumer Focus, and other consumer bodies, to the Citizens Advice service. Most consumer enforcement will pass to local authority trading standards.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said:
'Consumers are represented by a bewildering array of public, private and voluntary bodies, which often duplicate efforts to inform, educate and advise consumers of their rights. Our aim is to create a simpler structure with a single competition authority and a stronger role for front-line consumer services.'
Consumer and competition landscape - Secretary of State's statement 14 October 2010(PDF 18KB)
Consumer and competition landscape - QandAs 14 October 2010(PDF 52KB)
Public bodies reform - Proposals for change (PDF 435KB)
Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude's quangos statement in parliament
Consumer Focus’s response to the Public Bodies Bill
Office of Fair Trading response
BBC business editor Robert Pestons blog and comments from the public