A report by the National Audit Office reveals that the Business Secretary is making savage cuts in consumer protection work done by his own department and local council trading standard officers.
It says: “The department estimates that annual funding for Trading Standards Services will reduce from its current level of £213 million to between £140 million and £170 million by 2014, and some larger Trading Standards Services are likely to lose substantial resources.
“There is already considerable variation in the capacity and resourcing of Trading Standards Services, with some services having as few as two members of staff and others employing over 80, but there is no required minimum standard of service in place to guard against weaknesses in coverage.”
The Parliamentary watchdog report wants improvements in the way trading standards officers work to tackle what it estimates as £4.8 billion worth of crimes being committed by fraudsters.
Some £3.5 billion is believed to be lost every year by crooks sending scam emails, letters and making phone calls to unsuspecting members of the public to con them out of their savings.
Another £1.2 billion is made selling counterfeit goods. Figures are not available for doorstep crime – often bogus builders overcharging for shoddy work.
The auditors estimate that more not less work is needed to tackle this. They are unhappy that only 50 per cent of the 197 trading standards officers are linked to the Office of Fair Trading’s national intelligence database which keeps records of scams.
Regional intelligence officer posts – to combat crime when it crosses different trading standard office boundaries – are being left vacant. “Three of the 11 regional intelligence officers have been disbanded and there are only short-term arrangements in place for most of the remainder.”
The auditors conclude that the level of spending to fight consumer crime is low in comparison to the problem and varies enormously across Britain. Wales spends twice as much per head as London.
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “Consumers in this country believe they are well-protected but the reality does not support this view. The system for enforcing consumer law is fragmented and significantly underequipped to tackle a whole range of serious consumer scams.”
