A day in the life of...
... a Trading Standards Officer
The working day of a Trading Standards officer can be very varied. We can be checking scales in sweetshops to ensure that they are giving the correct measure one day and raiding premises producing counterfeit or unsafe goods the next. All of it is designed to safeguard you, the consumer and honest traders.
There have been a number of TV programmes in recent years which have followed Trading Standards in their day to day work. The work of Salford Trading Standards is little different to that of those other departments.
On a typical day a Trading Standards Officer may visit a number of pubs, supermarkets, newsagents, and other retail outlets to check that the goods they are selling goods are priced correctly, that they are safe, accurately described and of the correct measure. We also pretend to be consumers to check verbal and other descriptions/practices that are not readily detectable on a routine inspection of trade premises.
We deal with the following areas of work:
- Unsafe goods (toys, electrical items, gas appliances etc.).
- Underage sales of alcohol, fireworks, cigarettes, solvents, lottery tickets.
- "Clocked” cars (where the mileage on the speedometer has been turned back)
- Unroadworthy cars
- Misdescribed goods/services
- Short weight/measure goods (petrol, beer, spirits, food etc.)
- Counterfeit goods
- Misdescribed food (watered alcohol, beef described as lamb etc.)
- Food sold past its use by date
- Consumer credit agreements and advertisements
- Unfair trading practices
The above list is a small sample of our work and in some cases our powers are limited.The job does have a funny and sometimes dangerous side to it. Instances of both include:-
- One officer had his tie cut in half at a local pub
- One officer was bitten by a dog set upon him when he was confiscating illegal goods and he had to have a Tetanus injection.
- Another officer was shot at
This page was last updated on 24 June 2008
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