COSLA EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2015
03
APPLICATION FORM
Please refer to the ‘2015 Guidance for Applicants’
before completing this application form.
The application form is split over four sections. It is up to you to decide the content and length of each section, but your application must not exceed three pages in total (excluding the cover pages).
Please ensure that your application covers the key criteria that we are looking for and is effectively presented. Any questions relating to your application or the submission process should be directed to or 0131 474 9275.
The deadline for submission of entries is 5pm on Friday 24 October 2014.
Submitting Your Application Form
Please use our online application portal to submit this application form.
PLEASE PROVIDE SOME DETAILS ABOUT YOUR APPLICATION:
CATEGORY APPLIED FOR / Category 2: Achieving Better OutcomesPROJECT NAME
(as you wish to see it published) / The Highland Consumer Partnership
LEAD ORGANISATION / The Highland Council
DEPARTMENT/TEAM / Trading Standards Team
PARTICIPANT NAMES OR PARTNER ORGANISATIONS / David MacKenzie / Highland Trading Standards
Matthew Banks / Citizens Advice Scotland Community Action Team
Glenys Brown / Highland Trading Standards
Various / Managers of the eight Highland Citizens Advice Bureaux
Chairman and Executive Officers / Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS)
CONTACT NAME / David MacKenzie
CONTACT DETAILS /
01463 228716 / The Highland Council, Trading Standards, Development & Infrastructure Services, 38 Harbour Road, Inverness, IV1 1UF
CAN WE PUBLISH THIS APPLICATION FORM ON OUR WEBSITE? / YES
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY / In one short paragraph please describe this project is about, what it has achieved, and why it is delivering excellence.
Recent changes to the way in which consumer issues are dealt with have led to two lead organisations being identified: Trading Standards and Citizens Advice. While Citizens Advice is now responsible for consumer advice, education and advocacy, Trading Standards has the lead role in business advice and education, and enforcement of consumer law. Although there has been joint working between the two organisations in the past, it has been infrequent and ad hoc. This project is about building a more regular and systematic partnership, bringing together the strengths of both organisations to protect consumers and promote fair trading and economic growth in the Highlands. The Highland Consumer Partnership (“HCP”) is the first and so far only one of its kind in Scotland and is attracting considerable interest from across the country.
PLANNING / What is your project about, and why is it important? What are you aiming to achieve, and how does this fit with the bigger picture? Does it tackle the issues that matter most to your community or your organisation?
The Government’s plan is to position Citizens Advice and Trading Standards at the heart of a simplified and streamlined consumer landscape, both nationally and locally. The reforms reduced the number of organisations involved in consumer affairs, with the Office of Fair Trading and Consumer Focus closed down. This is known as the reform of the “consumer landscape”.
Some of the national elements of the change are relatively easy to implement, e.g. OFT’s Consumer Direct telephone helpline has been taken over by the Citizens Advice Consumer Service and operates in a similar way at several centres across the UK, giving advice and providing information to Trading Standards about the consumer problems reported. However there was no model for how to proceed locally. Therefore, plans were made to engage closely with all Highland CABs, first with their managers and then with staff and volunteers. Widespread consultation was planned to identify how the organisations could work together and how this could be achieved at minimum cost and disruption. Working procedures would be drawn up based on evaluation of the consultations, joint work would be trialled and assessed, and the partnership publicised.
In the past, Trading Standards visited businesses cyclically, whether or not anything was wrong. Nowadays, the work is based on “intelligence” and “detriment”, i.e. investigating businesses that are suspected of causing financial harm. The local CABs are a potential key source of information, particularly with groups of consumers that tend not to complain to Trading Standards or to the helpline, but prefer face-to-face help provided in a CAB. Such groups include senior citizens, young people and the socially-excluded of all ages. So, the HCP sought to deal with both the new “consumer landscape” and to widen the scope of Trading Standards work to engage fully with all Highland consumers, including the excluded groups. Other stakeholders would benefit: reputable businesses from compliance advice and action against rogue traders; Trading Standards employees from better working practices; Councillors seeing their constituents better served.
The objective of Trading Standards is to ensure that the buying and selling of goods and services involving Highland consumers or businesses are conducted in a fair and safe manner to the benefit of all. In terms of formal goal-setting, the Trading Standards Operational Plan requires the service to develop partnerships with the CAB network to contribute to two key objectives in the Council’s “Working Together for the Highlands 2012-17” programme, namely Theme 1 Assisting Economic Recovery and Theme 7, Strong and Safe Communities. This connects to the Single Outcome Agreement objective of protecting the public from “crime, fear and disorder”.
Specific results sought included: increase in intelligence to Trading Standards; improved consumer service to CAB clients through advice and assistance from TS; more effective consumer campaigning in Highland; tangible outcomes from new joint working cases, principally refunds and remedies for consumers and action taken against rogue traders.
DELIVERING / How have you carried out your project? How did you ensure that this was done effectively? What are you doing to continue to improve?
After preliminary meetings to introduce the concepts and agree initial terms of reference, the managers of all eight Highland bureaux agreed to participate in the partnership. Next, introductory meetings were held at each bureau with local CAB volunteers and staff alongside Trading Standards and representatives from CAS’s Community Action Team. These meetings had three main aims: to inform and explain the idea of the partnership to the CAB advisers; to prompt “buy-in” from them; to identify potential problems and concerns that the project team needed to address to deliver the partnership effectively. Similar meetings were also held with Trading Standards staff. Informed by all of these meetings, a document was compiled to describe the basis of the partnership. It identifies four core aspects to the partnership and how these are organised:
1. Help for consumers with their individual disputes with businesses: local arrangements were put in place to complement the on-going work of the national telephone helpline.
2. Consumer “intelligence” sharing: CABs share information about consumer problems with Trading Standards to inform of matters and businesses that require attention, including on-going reporting of issues and responses to specific requests from Trading Standards.
3. Second-tier support to advisers: It was recognised that Trading Standards needed to offer something concrete in return for the help of the advisers. So CAB advisers can phone or e-mail named officers in Trading Standards to receive specialist advice on a consumer case.
4. Campaigning work: joint publicity campaigns reflecting CAB’s consumer education role and the Trading Standards service’s crime prevention strategies.
All four of these strands have commenced, with activity in each increasing exponentially. As planned, a wide definition of “consumer issues” is being promoted, i.e. not just damaged sofas and faulty cars, but also including debt, rent and credit issues often seen at CAB.
Other activities of the partnership so far include the following:
· A Customer engagement forum is being piloted in the Skye and Lochalsh area. This aims to bring a wide range of community groups together – charities, local agencies, youth groups, community councils, etc. – to further encourage the reporting of consumer problems and to seek the views of local consumers on what the HCP should be doing.
· The partnership has a website; www.highlandconsumerpartnership.org.uk aimed primarily at participants and involved parties. Users can subscribe to a periodical e-mail Bulletin.
· Young Consumers of the Year Quiz: this is a long-standing national quiz for 14-17 year-olds, run by the Trading Standards Institute and aimed at promoting knowledge of consumer and money matters among school students. Participation in the event has reduced in recent years but the HCP is now looking to reinvigorate Highland participation by using the CAB’s local status to reconnect with schools and the Highland youth parliament.
· Oil Clubs: an unexpected and unplanned feature of the HCP has been to promote oil clubs, where consumers get together to negotiate better-value heating oil deals with suppliers. Significant progress has been made in particular in one area of Caithness.
· Information Videos have been produced to educate Highland consumers, e.g. tips on buying your first car aimed at 18-25s; advice on jewellery purchases and Hallmarking.
The partnership has been delivered at no extra cost: staff resources and some sundry expenses have come from existing Trading Standards, CAB and CAS budgets.
INNOVATION & LEADING PRACTICE / Why is your project innovative? How is it helping to prepare for the future? What is happening to help other organisations benefit from your approach?
The government’s “consumer landscape” reforms began in 2012 and are still ongoing. The HCP is the only partnership of its kind in Scotland which systematically integrates the work of the two remaining consumer agencies at a local level. Contact elsewhere remains ad hoc and unchanged.
However, there has been much interest in the HCP from other areas. The HCP team has given presentations about the partnership at a range of forums, including: CAB Conferences; a meeting of the UK Consumer Empowerment Alliance; a meeting of the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS). Particular interest has been shown by Aberdeenshire and Angus Councils both of which are looking to put together similar partnerships and are considering using the HCP as a model. During discussions with the HCP team, procedures, ideas and tips have been shared with these authorities, and ongoing support offered. A Toolkit for Partnership has been produced, endorsed by SCOTSS and CAS, for CABs and Trading Standards authorities to use as a guide to develop their own partnerships. This will be supported by three workshops to be held across Scotland with the HCP team providing training and advice on consumer partnerships.
A number of the activities in the partnership also involve new and leading practice, including:
· A slick and efficient system was devised which allows confidentiality and protection of sources to be respected while still providing useful information to Trading Standards. Due to the confidentiality of information, whole case files cannot be routinely shared. Instead, CAB advisers record information in an anonymised form on CAS’s social policy feedback system. This is then analysed by CAS and any relevant information passed to Trading Standards. Often, anonymous information is sufficient but if Trading Standards need to speak to the consumer, this can be arranged through the CAB if the consumer agrees.
· CAB advisers have a “hotline” to a named Trading Standards Officer (the “2nd Tier Support” mentioned above). A simple concept, but very valued by the advisers who have used it, and not systematically provided in this way elsewhere in the country.
RESULTS & IMPACT / What impact are you having, or expect to have? How are you measuring this, and what does this tell you? Are you delivering what you set out to achieve?
A range of metrics exist to evaluate the progress of the HCP. As of October 2014:
· 87 new pieces of consumer intelligence had been received by Trading Standards from CAB
· TS and CAB staff from all eight CABs had worked together on 52 consumer cases
· 10 joint Consumer Education events had been successfully run
· Total of over £15,000 redress for consumers after joint cases and related investigations
Further, there are a number of identifiable “qualitative” outcomes, notably successful investigations that have resulted from the new closer relationship between the CAB and Trading Standards, e.g.:
· Several local builders were successfully brought to book by Trading Standards after leaving consumers thousands of pounds out of pocket through very poor quality work.
· A bogus loan provider had his websites taken off-line by Trading Standards after a CAB client paid upfront fees but received no loans. A joint news release warned others.
· Local debt collectors were brought in to line by Trading Standards after the CAB and the Council’s Money Advice team reported harassment of debtors.
· Internet Delivery charges: a wide variety of information from CAB and CAS has assisted Trading Standards in their work to get Highland consumers a fair deal on delivery.
All these cases contribute to building stronger communities where individuals can feel secure and safe as consumers. More confident consumers boost economic growth through further purchases and legitimate local businesses benefit from action taken against rogue traders.
Further assessment of the HCP will come through a full evaluation which is planned for its two year “anniversary” in April 2015. Before that, stakeholder feedback will be sought, e.g. through a questionnaire to CAB volunteers and staff. Two further initiatives are currently being developed which involve using two areas of CAB strength to assist Trading Standards to take action to protect Highland consumers. These involve bad practices in the high cost credit market (e.g. payday lenders, debt collectors, pawnbrokers) and consumer problems related to private rented housing.
The biggest aim is to complete the transition of the HCP from a project into a part of the fabric of the day-to-day working practices of CABs and Trading Standards. This outcome is on the horizon.
NEXT STEPS
ü Have you answered the criteria set out in the guidance?
ü Is your application form 3 pages or less. (Anything more, including appendices, will be automatically rejected)
ü Has your application form been authorised by an appropriate person?
ü Have you indicated whether you wish the application form to be published?
ü Have you provided details for someone we can contact about your application?
SUBMITTING YOUR APPLICATION
PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR APPLICATION BY 24 OCTOBER 2014 USING OUR ONLINE APPLICATIONS PORTAL: