Trading Standards bodies fight back in row over RIPA

Trading Standards bodies have called for the “RIPA witch hunt” to end and sharply criticised the new requirement for councils to obtain authorisation from a Magistrates’ Court before taking action under the legislation.

In a joint statement the chief executive of the Trading Standards Institute, Ron Gainsford, the chairman of the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers, Guy Pratt, and the chairman of the National Trading Standards Board, David Collinson, said Trading Standards services within local authorities needed access to communications data as a part of their work in protecting local communities and legitimate businesses.  

Responding to last week’s Big Brother Watch report, A legacy of suspicion, they wrote: “The provision [for authorisation in the Protection of Freedoms Act] is an added burden on courts and trading standards alike, and is a victory to sensationalised and distorted media coverage, which has highlighted errors of judgement of the few at the expense of the vast body of evidence that shows RIPA being used in a proportionate and effective way for the good of consumers and honest business.

“Terminology such as the 'snoopers charter' has been extremely unhelpful and misleading, but we’d hope with the new Protection of Freedoms Act now in place the RIPA witch hunt could be laid to rest. Trading Standards up and down the country will continue to do their utmost in increasingly challenging conditions to serve their communities, keeping us all safe and healthy in ways that many don’t even realise.”

The Trading Standards Institute separately called for an end to the “blanket criticism” levelled at local government, which it said failed to acknowledge the essential part played by trading standards and other local authority public protection services in supporting and protecting people, communities and good business.

The TSI’s Gainsford described as “deeply disappointing” the decision by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to write the foreword to the Big Brother Watch report, which “seems so critical of those he should champion”.

Pickles had suggested that the Protection of Freedoms Act would ensure the public could be confident that “overzealous town hall bureaucrats do not use powers intended for terrorism or serious criminal investigations for trivial issues”.

The minister also claimed that councils had “seriously abused and over-used such snooping powers – for matters as trivial as spying on garden centres for selling pot plants; snooping on staff for using work showers or monitoring shops for unlicensed parrots”.

But the TSI's Gainsford said: “We would challenge Mr Pickles to look at the evidence – he will not find abuse or misuse of RIPA or other powers by trading standards, but instead a long list of success stories of how consumers and honest business have been protected from loan sharks, rogue traders and others that seek to defraud and prey on the vulnerable in our society.”

The TSI’s chief executive warned that without evidence gained from surveillance, it would be much harder, and sometimes impossible, to bring criminals to justice.

“Couple this with major budget cuts, reviews of other statutory powers afforded to competent and experienced trading standards professionals acting locally and nationally in the consumer and economic interest, and the Home Secretary also choosing to fall on local councils in her early statement on restriction of access to vital telecoms data.”

Gainsford said: “Trading Standards are not a foe, they are a friend, the opposite of the extremely unhelpful council snooper’s image so many national politicians and others seem set to create.”

He also pointed out that on average a local authority will only use RIPA powers less than 10 times a year and highlighted national statistics showing that council requests for communications data made up only 0.3% of all requests received. This figure has remained consistent since 2006 when reporting was introduced, Gainsford added.

The Big Brother Watch report demanded that any public authority using RIPA (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) should be required to publish standard information about how, when and to what outcome they use the powers.

It also called for judicial authorisation of surveillance to be extended to cover all public authorities and for a comprehensive review of RIPA to be undertaken.

Philip Hoult