Regulators Find It Pays to Trade Places
LBRO's Trading Places initiative is a kind of ‘get to know you' project that encourages closer contact between businesses and their local regulators, and gives enforcement officers the opportunity to see the impact of their decisions by spending time with local companies.
Fostering understanding between local authority regulatory services and the businesses they monitor brings benefits for both parties. This removes cultural barriers to communication, strengthens working relationships, encourages mutual trust, and promotes a partnership approach to achieving compliance.
Food giant Müller UK and Shropshire County Council are among the recent successes. Müller UK 's chief food law advisor, Sukh Gill, said: "It's really important for regulators to understand from a practical and commercial perspective how businesses are run, the processes we have in place and the steps we take to make sure we get things right."
And Shropshire County Council's Head of Area Public Protection, Karen Collier, said: "The Trading Places visit at the Müller Dairy in Shropshire was very interesting and informative."
Trading Places offers a great practical learning experience, plus valuable insight into how businesses are run and the challenges they can face in abiding by the rules.
This scheme is open to all environmental health, fire safety, licensing and trading standards officers working in local authorities, as well as businesses from any sector. It has backing from both sides of the fence, since it is endorsed by the CBI, British Chambers of Commerce, the British Retail Consortium, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and the Trading Standards Institute.
Trading Places was launched in March 2009 after extensive testing and evaluation, involving placements at Asda, B&Q, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Thomas Cook and Total.
Call LBRO on 0121 226 4000 for more information or visit http://www.lbro.org.uk/
1. The Local Better Regulation Office (LBRO) helps local authorities improve their environmental health, trading standards, fire safety and licensing services - reducing burdens on businesses that comply with the law while targeting those who flout it. It was incorporated as a government-owned limited company in May 2007. Following the commencement of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 on 1 October 2008, it now operates as an executive non-departmental public body, accountable to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills through the Better Regulation Executive. LBRO is governed by an independent Board, has a staff of around 25 and is based in central Birmingham. Our remit covers the whole of the UK and we liaise closely with the devolved administrations to ensure our work in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is appropriate. For further information please visit http://www.lbro.org.uk/