Public Affairs Part I: Environmental Health And Trading Standards

Public Affairs Part I Environmental Health and Trading Standards

Environmental Services The umbrella term used to cover all local authority services relating to the environment is environmental services. This includes: • Waste collection – The collection of household waste by district/borough councils in two-tier areas or unitary authorities. It normally involves weekly door-to-door collection – funded by council tax – and pilot initiatives have been introduced to distinguish between recyclable waste and that which is dumped at landfill sites • Waste disposal – Unitary authorities or county councils in two-tier areas are responsible for disposing of waste – normally in landfill sites. Private contractors must obtain waste management licences • Waste regulation – The Environment Agency or the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, depending on country • Pollution control – In response to growing pressure on the UK to conform to EU environmental protection policies, the EPA 1990 required local authorities to avoid pollution where at all possible

Environmental Services • Contaminated land – District/borough councils must, under the 1990 Act, identify and register any contaminated land in their areas – if a serious problem is noted, the authority must designate a special site and notify the EA/SEPA (who will then take over responsibility for enforcing any action to be taken). The enforcing authority serves a remediation notice on those responsible • Statutory nuisances – The 1990 Act empowers local authorities to serve abatement notices on those responsible for statutory nuisances deemed prejudicial to health, such as gas or fumes; dust, steam smell or effluvia; accumulations of rubbish; and noise pollution from vehicles or machinery (in the latter circumstances, authorities can seize equipment and serve warning notices • Air quality – the following types of emissions are prohibited under the Clean Air Act 1993: (a) “Dark smoke” issuing from chimneys, (b) Excessive smoke, grit, dust and fumes from chimneys, (c) Excessively high chimneys, (d) Excessive exhaust emissions (e) Smoke emissions in designated smoke control areas Authorities must also produce air quality action plans

Environmental Services • Food safety – since The Food Standards Act 1999, in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food’s mishandling of the BSE crisis, the task of monitoring food safety has fallen to a new Food Standards Agency. In local areas, however, food safety is the responsibility of shire borough/district councils. Its focus is on ensuring hygiene is observed during: sale, importation, preparation, transportation, storing, packing, wrapping, displaying, serving and delivery. Authorities’ environmental health inspectors are responsible for: (a) Inspecting and seizing suspicious food (b) Issuing improvement notices to owners of food businesses (c) Serving emergency prohibition notices to close businesses risking public health (d) Liaising with NHS when they need to take action in relation to health (e) Issuing enforcement notices dictated by government in instances of crisis (e.g. ban on the sale of beef on the bone during BSE scare) (f) Overseeing regulation of slaughterhouses in accordance with EU

Environmental Services • Animal health – Authorities can safeguard the health of livestock for their own benefit and that of the public. Where a landowner suspects an outbreak of a specified disease among his animals, he or she must inform the police, and the local authority and the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). This was the procedure followed during the recent foot and mouth epidemic. Once an outbreak has been confirmed, the movement of animals from the land or within and beyond the local area is prohibited • Litter – Local authorities and other owners of public land are legally bound to keep their land free of litter. Enforcing authorities can designate specific litter control areas where it’s an offence to dump • General health risks – If measures for preserving public health fail and diseases like dysentery or typhoid break out, the authority must inform the NHS and the local Director of Public Health • Other activities – These range from maintaining cemeteries and and providing clean public lavatories to controlling dangerous dogs

The Role of Trading Standards • Sunday Trading – Since the passage of the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, the bulk of decisions on shop opening hours and employment practices have been left to individual retailers. But The Sunday Trading Act 1994 stipulated: (a) “Large shops” – i.e. ones with internal sales areas of 280 square metres or more, can open for up to six hours between 10am and 6pm, but must remain closed on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day (b) Small shops could open as and when they chose to (c) Rights for workers who don’t wish to work Sundays • Consumer protection – Monitoring the accurate description of goods; fair trading practices; the use of credit; and the safety of goods sold. Trading standards officers employed by county councils or unitary authorities. They are responsible for overseeing composition and labelling of food - not food hygiene There are two main criminal offences covering consumer protection: (a) selling food that is not of the nature, substance or quality demanded by purchaser; and (b) falsely describing or presenting it

The Role of Trading Standards • Weights and measures – Each authority must appoint a Chief Inspector of Weights and Measures to ensure all traders comply with authorised weights and measures systems. Inspectors regularly check market stalls and shops and, with magistrates’ permission, can demand entry to premises to test weighing equipment – and sale of food or other goods by “short weight” is treated as a criminal offence. Recent years have also seen systematic steps taken to ensure that retailers in Britain are complying with EU weights and measures legislation – i.e. by labelling goods metrically • Trade descriptions – it is a criminal offence under the Trade Descriptions Acts of 1968 and 1972 for “false descriptions” to be given to goods, or “false indications” given of their sale price • Fair trading and consumer credit – the Fair Trading Act 1973 introduced a Director General of Fair Trading, who has the authority to ask anyone in the course of business “acting in a way detrimental to the interests of consumers” to give assurances as to their future conduct. Civil claims under the Sale of Goods Act have to be brought by individuals through the county courts