In 2010 the UK coalition government embarked on a project of sustained public expenditure decreases referred to as ‘austerity’. According to its programme for government, this ‘deficit reduction’ programme was to take precedence over other things, in a manner almost constitutional. The burden of the impacts of austerity fell on many if not most, a major victim being local government.
Here I’m focusing on one aspect of austerity: local authority (LA) enforcement, in two related areas – trading standards (TS) and environmental health (EH). Austerity has severely challenged the ability of LAs to carry out TS and EH enforcement.
Local authorities as law enforcers
Law enforcement isn’t just a police matter. There are a multitude of enforcement agencies, including LAs.
Prominent areas of LA law enforcement responsibilities lie with TS and EH officers. TSOs enforce laws on fair trading, product safety, weights and measures, food standards, and more. EHOs enforce food safety, noise and air pollution, and infectious diseases, among others. TS and EH are closely connected and the two disciplines will invariably be in close proximity within the LA structure.
LA enforcement also includes child protection, building regulation, planning, waste (collection, fly-tipping, littering, dog-fouling), school attendance, and licensing. Unfairness can arise through failure of enforcement, because the rule of law doesn’t apply and people’s rights aren’t protected. That can interfere with social justice outcomes.
Social justice arises where there’s fair distribution of and access to societal goods such as opportunities, services, accommodation, and wealth. Then fundamental human needs are met – people can flourish as autonomous individuals, and as and within communities. Social justice can be pursued in various ways, including through effective enforcement that upholds the rule of law and is protective of human and other rights in an equal fashion.
The rule of law means everyone, regardless of wealth or status, is subject to the same laws. So it’s more of an ideal than a possibility, though one essential to democracy and civil society. People’s rights are protected if the rule of law has real application to their lives, contributing to good social outcomes. Put another way, the relatively effective application of the rule of law contributes to social justice. Ineffective enforcement can have the opposite effect.
Case studies
People can die from a product or food which is unsafe, or suffer serious harm from financial exploitation – especially more vulnerable people. Three case studies are illustrative: the first an EH case, the second a TS case, and the third TS-related.
In 2005 there was an E. coli outbreak in South Wales due to supply of contaminated meat, with 157 cases identified. Most involved children in 44 schools across four LA areas. Mason Jones, aged five, died as a consequence. William Tudor, the owner of the business supplying the meat, was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for food safety offences. Subsequently, in 2015 the Crown Prosecution Service admitted that Tudor should have faced a charge of manslaughter.
In 2022, roofer Cornelius Price was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for fraudulently obtaining over £100,000 from vulnerable or elderly people. He targeted 17 victims, who were significantly overcharged for shoddy or incomplete work to their homes. According to the judge, Price left his victims “in a state of extreme distress and the impact on their lives and homes cannot be underestimated”.
The 2017 fire that destroyed Grenfell Tower killed 72 people. A public inquiry concluded that the fire was started by an electrical fault with a fridge-freezer in one of the flats (though exacerbated by multiple other failings from local to national levels). Enforcement of the safety of products supplied to consumers is down to TS.
Desirable outcomes
In broad terms, law is created, and breach of it can be an offence – whether that relates to food safety, fair trading, or consumer product safety. Enforcement duties are given to LAs under such laws. These can be found, for example, in the Food Safety Act 1990, Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, and Consumer Protection Act 1987.
Yes, it’s about safe food, abuse prevention, and safe products. But it’s also about more routine matters that ensure we can live our lives in an ordered and fairer way. So that when we buy a product we can be confident about the premises from where it’s supplied – because they’ve been inspected – and the person who supplies it, as they’re approved. And that we’re getting what we think we are because, for example, a petrol pump has been inspected and calibrated.
Effective LA enforcement can mean people are confident that food they buy won’t poison them. That an electrical product they buy won’t electrocute them or burn their house down. That the air they breathe or land they live on isn’t contaminated. That they won’t be financially abused and deprived of their life savings. That they won’t contract an infectious disease, and goods and services purchased are as expected – that something described as chicken, is chicken. That surely isn’t too much to ask?
Sufficient resourcing and austerity
Effective enforcement can only occur if it’s appropriately resourced. This is where austerity rears its ugly head.
Funding for Welsh LAs during the period 2009–2010 to 2016–2017 for public protection (which incorporated EH) and TS fell by 28.4% in real terms. For 2008–2009 compared to 2023–2024, real-terms net spending by Welsh LAs for TS fell by 38%. No equivalent figure was given for EH during that period, but there’s no suggestion that the real-terms fall didn’t continue after 2016–2017. TS and EH staff numbers fell significantly.
For TS alone, as early as 2015, Institute for Local Government Studies research found the number of UK trading standards staff had halved in five years. “A fundamental shift in the trading standards landscape was revealed, with for example intelligence-led investigations replacing routine inspections, and an increasing loss of expertise accelerated by voluntary redundancy programmes.”
By early 2024, it was said that “Trading standards budgets were cut by 50% and street cleaning by more than a fifth. Waste disposal and collection budgets per person have been squeezed by 11%.” UNISON said at that time that TS cuts were “putting the public at the mercy of unscrupulous individuals and businesses, including loan companies, money lenders, scammers, and counterfeiters. Budget cuts have led to falls in levels of Trading Standards activity across the board, including scheduled inspections, enforcement visits, and prosecutions.”
Reduced resourcing isn’t entirely due to austerity. Other LA services like social services have taken priority and diverted resources due to increased demand. For example, for 2008–2009 to 2023–2024, real-terms net spending by Welsh LAs for children and family services increased by 94%.
But austerity has been a significant contributor to reductions for TS and EH, making them less effective and more likely to fail social justice and other outcomes.
The case for TS and EH
Services like EH and TS don’t have high profiles. If things aren’t obviously wrong, they don’t generally attract attention. It takes something like the death of Mason Jones, or how the Grenfell fire started, to focus a spotlight on them.
Failure to enforce more routine things like accurate weights and measures, product descriptions, fair contract terms, and the like might not directly lead to such horrific outcomes. But they create the conditions in which those are more likely to occur. And those conditions also encourage other law-breaking, through which people suffer economic and emotional harm, as with the victims of Cornelius Price.
Adequately resourced TS and EH enforcement is necessary to prevent or minimise such conditions. It can also be viewed in investment terms. If the desired outcomes are achieved there will be societal benefits and savings, economically and in personal wellbeing and community cohesion. Cuts are literally a false economy.
Of course, effective enforcement isn’t just about sufficient resourcing. Things like strategy, planning, efficiency, workforce culture, and skills are important too. But nonetheless, effective enforcement must be resourced. And it isn’t. It’s a creeping unseen danger.
Austerity starts as an accounting exercise. But it can end in the denial of social justice. And in death.
