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Key contacts

Trading standards (business)
Essex County Council
New Dukes Way Office
2 Beaufort Road
Dukes Park Industrial Estate
Chelmsford, CM2 6PS

Telephone: 0845 603 7626

0845 calls to Essex County Council are charged at BT landline standard rate. Please check with your provider as other tariffs may vary.

Education Policy

ECC Trading Standards Education Policy 

1. This policy forms part of and should be read with the Essex County Council Trading Standards Enforcement policy
2. Educating the businesses and consumers of Essex is one of the enforcement activities that ECC Trading Standards will use as part of its “enforcement mix” to support businesses seeking to comply with the law, protect consumers and disrupt and stop those that trade dishonestly, fraudulently or negligently. This policy states how ECC Trading Standards will use “education” activities to achieve its aims.
3. For the purpose of this policy, “education” is the proactive provision of advice or information to consumers and businesses on Trading Standards-related legislation, their rights and responsibilities under that legislation and the role of ECC Trading Standards Service and its partner organisations in protecting consumers and legitimate businesses.
4. ECC Trading Standards will deliver a programme of proactive consumer and business education activities set out in our annual Service Plan This programme will be based on customer consultation and ECC and Trading Standards Service priorities but retain the flexibility to respond to emerging issues (such as new legislation or a new form of consumer or business “scam” targeting Essex), so reflecting ECC Trading Standards’ “intelligence-led” approach to enforcement.
5. ECC Trading Standards will educate consumers and businesses by working with and through partners and their networks. Wherever possible, ECC Trading Standards staff will actively support and provide agreed resources to enable those best placed and best skilled to provide education and advice to their own customers and community groups. In particular, ECC Trading Standards will work through:
  • the teachers and lecturers in Essex’s schools and colleges to develop informed, confident young consumers of the future,
  • those community groups that represent and work with Essex’s older people, disabled, and ethnic minority communities to build networks through which consumers can better access Trading Standards advice and protection.
  • Local business groups such as the Chambers of Commerce, Business Link and Small Business Service, and trade and business associations and federations to advise businesses what the law is and how they can most easily comply with that law and so develop informed, successful and competitive businesses in Essex.
  • other regulators, including EETSA and Essex Police, when there is a joint responsibility or input to an issue affecting Essex consumers and businesses.
6. In every ECC or Trading Standards service target, enforcement project or activity undertaken by ECC Trading Standards, we will actively consider how proactive consumer and business education can, as part of an effective “enforcement mix”, contribute to achieving improved compliance with the law and protection of consumers and businesses.
7. ECC Trading Standards will provide talks to community and business groups as part of its commitment to proactive education. However, the service reserves the right to decline to provide such talks when they are a general presentation about Trading Standards or are “entertainment” value to the group requesting the talk. Where the service agrees to provide such a talk, then a fee will be charged to cover costs and expenses incurred by the service.
8. This policy will be reviewed by the ECC Trading Standards Operational Management Team at least once every 12 months.