National Trading Standards Intelligence Team

One of the key objectives for National Trading Standards has been to develop intelligence led working and to support local authority trading standards services in using intelligence to help support local work and priorities. A key part of this has been to develop a framework to help trading standards adopt a problem-solving approach to consumer and business protection work, and establish an intelligence network.

There is a National Trading Standards Intelligence Team which is hosted by Suffolk County Council. The team provides technical expertise to help identify and analyse national trends and emerging threats, informing tasking and prioritisation processes. National Trading Standards has also provided funding to support a network of regional intelligence analysts and local authorities have been encouraged to have local intelligence liaison officers.

These officers help record, develop and analyse intelligence, monitor trends, and identify key problems and threats. This enables targeted enforcement to be taken nationally, regionally and locally to effectively deal with criminals. Tackling national, regional and local priorities such as doorstep crime, mass marketing scams, e-crime, product safety, intellectual property and other trading standards issues that go beyond local authority boundaries.