MPs attack lack of protection for public from £7bn rackets

Consumer protection services have failed to keep up with the growth of problems related to online shopping, such as email scams or fraud involving chip and pin cards, the Commons Public Accounts Committee found.

More criminals are operating regionally and nationally, where MPs found protection measures to be “inadequate”, as most consumer law enforcement is carried out by local councils.

Even among councils there appear to be “enforcement deserts” with some authorities employing as few as two trading standards officers, compared to others with 100 or more.

The cross-party committee called on Business Secretary Vince Cable’s department to ensure it provided “a system fit for the modern era”, well enough resourced to protect consumers and ensure a robust response to new and sophisticated scams.

MPs referred to figures contained in a National Audit Office (NAO) report, which revealed that spending on trading standards is at a level of less than £3 per head in some parts of Yorkshire.

It found that the region was served by 72 trading standards officers – one for every 57,200 residents. Only London, with one officer for every 70,200, had a smaller workforce in relation to its population.

The NAO said there were 1,241 officers in England, Scotland and Wales – one for every 45,200 people.

The most efficient service in the country was offered in West Yorkshire, where five council areas have been covered by a single unit since 1986.

MPs found that the Government spent only £34m on consumer protection at regional and national levels in 2009-10.

Their report warns that local trading standards budgets across Britain were to be cut by a third – from £213m in 2009-10 to about £140m in 2014.

West Yorkshire Trading Standards chief officer Graham Hebblethwaite said the region’s crack investigative teams, called Scambusters, were achieving good results despite funding cuts.

The committee found that the Government’s plans to abolish the Consumer Focus watchdog and scale down the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) could risk authorities’ capability to tackle regional and national scams.

But Yorkshire’s trading standards group, which includes representatives from 11 authorities, said few frontline officers would share the concerns. Its chairman, Graham Venn, who heads North Yorkshire Trading Standards, said it welcomed the plans to hand some of the OFT’s powers to a board including regional officers.

A spokesman for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills said it would take the committee’s recommendations on board.