New National Trading Standards Board

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has announced that there is to be a new National Trading Standards Board (NTSB) set up to help stop rogue traders.

The Board’s aim will be to ‘prioritise, fund and coordinate’ national and regional enforcement, along with a new advice line 08454 040506, run by Citizens Advice.

From April next year, £10.5 million funding will be redirected from the current OFT budget to the Trading Standards departments in England, Wales and Scotland to help strengthen cross boundary working.

However, Which? the consumer body is concerned that it will ‘over-stretch’ resources. They said “Under [these] changes, local trading standards, more used to tackling street markets and rogue plumbers, will be required to do the majority of consumer law enforcement work and will be expected take on powerful national and international companies, putting considerable extra strain on local authority Trading Standards services at a time when councils are slashing their budgets and trading standards officers are being made redundant across the country.”

What are your views on the new National Trading Standards Board? Do you think it could help rid us of the cowboy builders in the industry?