Breckland Council pioneers scheme to cut red tape for business
15 June 2010
Breckland Council is pioneering a new scheme to cut red tape for business - and it has started with a partnership with Hughes, which has 44 outlets in the East of England and is one of the UK's largest rental and electrical retail companies.
The partnership, known as Primary Authority, cuts duplicated effort when it comes to local regulations saving business time and money and freeing up valuable council resources to deal with other issues.
For companies operating under two or more local councils, Primary Authority provides reliable and consistent advice from a single source when dealing with environmental health, trading standards, health and safety, and licensing services.
Currently, businesses run the risk of prosecution, even if they follow official advice, if local inspectors disagree about how to interpret regulations. This can also result in discrepancies in protection for consumers, workers and the environment.
Sarah Shipley, Breckland Council's Principal Environmental Health Officer, said: "Over the past 6 years we have worked with Hughes in order to help them develop their health and safety management systems to help them comply with health and safety legislation and strive towards best practice. The creation of the Primary Authority partnership will help ensure consistency of regulation across local authority boundaries which will be of benefit to Hughes since they have outlets in many different local authorities areas.'
Executive member for Housing and Health at Breckland Council, Paul Claussen added: ‘Both Hughes and Breckland Council are very excited to be joining the Primary Authority Partnership particularly as it will be the first of its kind in Norfolk or Suffolk'."
Nick Heffer Hughes's HR Director said: "Over the last few years Hughes Electrical has developed an excellent working relationship with Breckland District Council in relation to health and safety.
"The new primary authority partnership has enabled us to further develop our health and safety management system in a cost effective and practical way. We are keen to keep the two most important groups of people for us healthy and safe - our customers and our staff.
"The ongoing practical safety management reviews carried out by Sarah Shipley and Jeremy Hadaway of Breckland Council have given us a focused list of things to do to make sure we are managing safety properly but also cost effectively.
"We appreciate the practical and realistic guidance from Breckland and the consistency it provides when dealing with other enforcement bodies in other geographic areas."
The Primary Authority scheme is administered by LBRO, the public body responsible for better regulation. Chairman Clive Grace said: "The Primary Authority scheme is a common sense approach that reduces red tape for business and gives them confidence in the system, while enabling councils such as Breckland to better direct their resources. The result, in the end, is enhanced consumer protection and public money saved."
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