News Archive - Major Stories
13/1/12 LBRO is offering training courses for regulators in local authorities considering becoming Primary Authorities; and for those already engaged with the scheme who want to get the most out of it.
23/12/11 Following the Government's announcement on the extension and expansion of Primary Authority, LBRO intends to establish a Primary Authority User Group, consisting of representatives from Primary Authority businesses and local authorities.
7/12/11 Primary Authority, the flagship scheme operated by LBRO (Local Better Regulation Office), is set to be expanded to enable more, smaller businesses to benefit; and extended to cover more areas of regulation.
2/12/11 The approach taken by LBRO (Local Better Regulation Office) will continue to be at the heart of delivering protection and growth, following the consultation on its future which attracted responses from major business organisations and professional bodies.
30/11/11 A new approach to the regulation of age-restricted sales has received wide support from regulators, professional bodies and business groups.
4/11/11 Priority Regulatory Outcomes, a new approach towards refreshing the national enforcement priorities for England, has been launched by LBRO.
1/11/11 The Common Approach to Competency for regulators has been launched, providing a unique set of agreed core skills for regulators to use, supported by web based resources for personal development planning.
14/10/11 Business and Enterprise Minister Mark Prisk is to launch a summit on how to cut red tape and encourage business diversity
30/09/11 Local and national regulators in Wales have put their combined effort into getting the best out of the information they collect.
20/09/11 A new analysis by LBRO has revealed the extent of planned local government spending cuts on regulatory services (environmental health, trading standards, licensing) in England and Wales.
12/07/11 Regulatory enforcement professionals are being urged to engage with the Government's Red Tape Challenge (RTC) and ensure their expert insight is taken into account.
5/07/11 Business Minister Mark Prisk has received a report on the use of date-labelling (use-by and best before dates on food) which sets the basis for a unique new partnership between business and regulators to reduce the 5.3m tonnes of food wasted in UK every year.
4/07/11 Business Minister Mark Prisk has welcomed another significant milestone for the Primary Authority scheme, administered by LBRO, which has notched up its 1,000th partnership - and the message is that it's not just about big business.
28/06/11 New podcasts have been launched online in which Trading Standards and Environmental Health officers describe the benefits of Trading Places, the scheme that helps foster closer relationships between regulators and businesses.
27/06/11 LBRO has welcomed a consultation paper on the best way to deliver prosperity and protection through a new streamlined body within Government.
23/06/11 Consultation on a broad framework of principles to encourage compliance and enforcement regarding sales of age-restricted products has been launched by LBRO at the Trading Standards Institute conference.
22/06/11 News special: Full text of joint statement of commitment.
14/06/11 Graham Russell, the Chief Executive of LBRO, has been awarded the MBE for services to businesses and consumers, in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
13/06/11 A senior member of the Trading Standards Institute (TSI) - Peter Denard, Surrey County Council's trading standards chief for almost two decades - has been awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for services to local government and to consumers.
23/05/11 Thomas Cook, one of the world's leading travel companies, has signed up to a scheme that will cut red tape relating to health and safety and fair trading for its operations in the UK.
15/04/11 News special: Summary of joint commitment.
08/04/11 KFC, one of the world's leading quick service restaurant companies, has signed up to a scheme that will cut local red tape for its operations in hundreds of outlets across the UK.
05/04/11 CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) has signed a primary authority partnership with the City of London Corporation - a legally binding agreement that means the corporation will act as a single point of reference for health and safety regulations for CBRE in the UK.
21/03/11 LBRO, which administers Primary Authority, is testing how some of the scheme's tools that work well for big business can be adapted for smaller local concerns.
18/03/11 Slough Borough Council, home to Europe's largest trading estate and some of the biggest, best known brands in the world, is among the first local authorities to benefit from a new initiative to smooth the way into Primary Authority.
02/03/11 The Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) could be the first to include helping business cut through local red tape as part of its remit.
23/02/11 Pilots of a common framework of professional standards have been launched by local authority trading standards and environmental health officers working with the regulatory outcomes experts LBRO.
18/02/11 LBRO, the regulatory delivery organisation, has developed two new tools to supplement its successful Outcomes and Impacts Toolkit which helps regulators demonstrate the value of their services.
15/02/11 Supermarket giant Sainsbury's is giving its support to partnerships between local retailers tackling under-age sales of alcohol, set up through the Retail of Alcohol Standards Group (RASG).
09/02/11 Muddled law and confusion among consumers are among the issues raised by a new review group set up to tackle business concerns regarding the date-coding of food.
08/02/11 Five draft national enforcement priorities for English local authorities are being published for consultation today, as part of LBRO's ongoing role to improve the way regulations impact at the front line.
04/02/11 A number of new projects are being launched by the regulatory delivery organisation LBRO today, to ensure progress towards the Government's plans for streamlined and improved regulation.
31/01/2011 The Primary Authority scheme, operated by regulatory delivery organisation LBRO, is moving into a new phase to reflect the Government's vision for collaborative regulation, with the emphasis on business playing a greater role.
Seminars to spur debate on test-purchasing
24/01/11 LBRO, the technical expert in local regulation, and the Trading Standards Institute are planning a series of seminars to stimulate debate regarding test-purchasing and more effective approaches to controlling age-restricted products.
21/12/10 The Office of Fair Trading and the Local Better Regulation Office have outlined for consultation their proposed approach to the use of new powers which will allow enforcement bodies to directly impose fines and other sanctions on traders for breaches of consumer law.
17/12/10 Kwik Fit Tyre and Exhaust Centres have joined an innovative scheme that will cut red tape associated with health and safety at 570 centres around the UK.
29/11/10 LBRO has been honoured at an awards evening staged by the National Federation of Retail Newsagents.
16/11/10 JD Wetherspoon has signed up to a groundbreaking scheme that will help the pub chain cut duplicated effort when complying with regulations across all its outlets.
16/11/10 Lighting and electrical company Status International has signed up to a groundbreaking scheme that will help the firm cut duplicated effort when complying with regulations.
Tesco signs Primary Authority agreement
08/11/10 Tesco has joined a groundbreaking scheme that will help the retailer to comply with a plethora of locally enforced regulations across all its stores and depots.
26/10/10 Three of the UK's major supermarkets, Tesco, Sainsbury and the Co-operative Group, are among the latest major companies that have signed up to Primary Authority, taking participation by the food retail sector to 73%.
21/10/10 The first ever comprehensive report of business attitudes to regulation and its burdens, involving consensus from an unprecedented range of leading representative bodies and companies, has been published.
18/10/10 Primary Authority is now established as one of the key mechanisms in cutting red tape for business and could be strengthened to give it more ‘teeth' following two major statements.
05/10/10 LBRO is to work on fresh proposals to tackle the issue of sales to children of alcohol, cigarettes and other age-restricted products.
27/09/10 People in Wales have a high level of confidence in the consumer protection advice they get, according to a new survey of attitudes, but many have serious concerns about alcohol and cigarettes being sold to children.
21/09/10 A local council has saved its primary authority business the £1m cost of unnecessary health and safety measures, showing the very real benefits of the red tape cutting scheme.
31/08/10 Retailers, who spend £20m per year on preventing sales to underage people of alcohol, tobacco, spray paint, knives, fireworks and other age-restricted products, have set out their ideas in a new report.
18/08/10 More than 100 councils are now using a new tool designed to show the benefits of local regulation to business, consumers and communities; with numbers growing as budget constraints demand greater demonstration of value for money.
30/07/10 More major businesses have added their weight to the Trading Places programme, which encourages better working relationships between regulatory officers and businesses.
28/07/10 Improving the quality of life in Wales is at the heart of priorities set out in a new document prepared by LBRO for the Welsh Assembly Government.
22/07/10 LBRO welcomes the review, by the Government, of its activities, which are creating the conditions needed to improve regulatory performance in a way that benefits business.
16/07/10 Another step towards making the regulatory system work better has been taken following the signing of memoranda of understanding between LBRO, the technical expert on local regulation, and five major regulatory bodies.
15/07/10 Business growth is still threatened by the burden of regulation but there are signs that the drive to cut red tape is having a positive impact, according to a national survey undertaken for LBRO, the technical expert on better local regulation.
28/06/10 Local councils now have a robust tool for improving their regulatory services, an independent report has concluded.
15/06/10 Ministers have asked the Better Regulation Executive to work with LBRO - the technical expert on better local regulation - to prepare options for extending the Primary Authority scheme.
21/05/10 LBRO has produced a ready to use version of its Impacts and Outcomes toolkit following its enthusiastic take up by regulatory enforcement officers.
06/04/10 Delivering a single business inspection, by one inspector, covering multiple regulatory functions, ranging from trading standards to environmental health, is a considerable challenge, according to a second report on the Retail Enforcement Pilot.
30/03/10 LBRO has begun the process of refreshing the national enforcement priorities for regulation in England, with the emphasis changing to focus on outcomes and risk.
03/03/10 An extra £300,000 to stop dangerous products finding their way into British shops has been welcomed by LBRO, the public body responsible for better local regulation.
15/02/10 The first agreement between all key players on ‘excellence' in delivering outcomes through the local authority regulatory system - the Excellence Framework - has been launched by Consumer Affairs Minister Kevin Brennan.
25/01/10 Moves to curb irresponsible drinking have led to a call for a 'revisit of existing solutions', particularly in preventing sales of alcohol to young people.
15/12/09 The latest 'map' has been produced providing a snapshot of just how many regulations we now have to comply with, and just how complex life has become over nearly two centuries of legislation.
07/12/09 Local regulatory services across England and Wales are spending around £6 million a year on dealing with central Government requests for data - roughly half the salary of an extra environmental health or trading standards officer for every council - according to a new report.
04/12/09 A new report highlights the economic benefit to the UK from local regulatory enforcement action to protect business and the public from threats to the nation as a whole.
01/12/09 For the first time, Welsh local authorities will have their own national priorities for wide ranging activity affecting the quality of life of their citizens - everything from food safety and safer communities to healthier workplaces and fairer trading.
02/11/09 LBRO has published a collection of thought provoking essays on the critical role effective regulation plays in economic prosperity and consumer protection.
21/10/09 For the first time local regulators have access to a powerful toolkit to help them in planning budgets and priorities, and raising their profile, following groundbreaking research commissioned by LBRO, the public body responsible for better local regulation.
20/10/09 New research shows that the way local councils enforce regulations can have wide ranging effects on your community - anything from boosting the price of your house to health benefits.
14/07/09 Successful initiatives in the fight against underage sales of alcohol have been highlighted in a new study by the public body for better local regulation, LBRO, as part of a drive to help local councils and police forces keep alcohol out of the hands of the under 18s.
03/07/09 The public body for better local regulation, LBRO, could help councils get new powers to secure compensation for consumers, following today's publication of the Government's Consumer White paper.
15/06/09 Focusing local weights and measures activity on the national priority of healthy workplaces by targeting related activity such as drug preparations, is one of the innovative approaches to tackling national priorities at a local level and within limited budgets, recently published by LBRO.
06/04/09 Retailers B&Q, Iceland and Moto Hospitality Ltd today signed up to the launch of the new Primary Authority scheme designed to ensure that key trading laws are applied consistently across the UK. Lord Carter, Minister for Regulatory Reform, welcomed the official signing of the partnership agreements between some of Britain's biggest businesses and most innovative councils.
27/03/09 Senior company bosses, regulators and business organisations attended the launch of Trading Places - a new initiative from LBRO to show local authority regulators first-hand how their decisions affect the business they inspect.
19/12/08 Work to improve the regional coordination of regulatory services in England has been given a big cash boost.
11/11/08 Council services providing vital consumer protection and regulatory advice to business are delivered amid enormous complexity, the first ever 'map' of the UK's regulatory regime reveals.
01/10/08 A major new business survey has found that just over seven out of 10 businesses feel that council enforced regulations can be as big or a bigger burden than tax and employment law - setting out the challenge for LBRO, which marked its formal launch today.
12/09/08 Some of Britain's biggest businesses and most innovative councils are to pioneer a new type of regulatory partnership designed to ensure that key trading laws are applied consistently across the UK.
30/05/2008 Two influential organisations - LBRO and LACORS - today pledged to work together for better council regulatory services.
15/05/07 Hilary Armstrong, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, today announced the appointment of seven Board Members and a chief executive of the newly established Local Better Regulation Office.
15/04/07 Hilary Armstrong, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, today announced the appointment of Clive Grace as Chair of the Local Better Regulation Office.
