Business

Service Standards

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Inspection of Trading Premises

All trading premises are liable to periodic inspections by Trading Standards services.

In order to manage an inspection program, we categorise premises as High, Medium or Low risk according to a range of criteria. The frequency of inspection is then dependent on the level of risk. For example, High risk premises are scheduled to be inspected every year, Medium risk every two years and Low risk every five years. This means that, for example, one-fifth of the total number of Low risk premises is targeted each year.

The following are the statistics for the last two accounting years.

2004-2005

Level of risk (visit frequency	No. of premises in risk category	No. to be inspected this year	% of target achieved
High (12 months)	9	9	66.7%
Medium (24 months	752	376	75.5%
Low (60 months)	915	183	82%

2005-2006

Level of risk (visit frequency	No. of premises in risk category	No. to be inspected this year	% of target achieved
High (12 months)	9	9	100%
Medium (24 months	760	356	89.9%
Low (60 months)	839	188	89.8%

Consumer complaints - Business advice requests

"Complaints" includes complaints, enquiries or advice requests.
"Business advice" is advice requested by individual businesses.

The following tables chart the time taken to complete complaints and business advice requests. Note, however, that individual cases can vary widely in subject matter and complexity, which can affect the completion time.

2004-2005 - Completion times

Type	Number received	% dealt with within 14 days
Consumer complaints	1342	76.5%
Business advice requests	163	92.6%

2005-2006 - Completion times

Type	Number received	% dealt with within 14 days
Consumer complaints	1464	81.1%
Business advice requests	171	94.7%

Types of goods/services most complained about

The 10 types of goods/services about which we received most complaints over the last two accounting years were:

2004-2005

	Type of Goods/Services	No. of complaints - year end March 2005
1	Home maintenance/improvements	120
2	Upholstered furniture	90
3	Used motor vehicles	82
4	Prize draws & Competitions	68
5	Mobile phones	68
6	TV & audio/visual equipment	48
7	Personal computers & hardware	46
8	Clothing	46
9	Vehicle repairs / servicing	42
10	Food and drink	39

2005-2006

	Type of Goods/Services	No. of complaints - year end March 2006
1	Home maintenance/improvements	202
2	Used motor vehicles	116
3	TV & audio/visual equipment	86
4	Upholstered furniture	84
5	Mobile phones	67
6	Prize draws & Competitions	66
7	Clothing	56
8=	Motor vehicle repairs/servicing	50
8=	White Goods (cookers,fridges,etc.)	50
10	Personal computers & hardware	47

Results of Survey of our Customers - Consumers

(All figures are shown as a percentage of the total responses)

1 How satisfied were you with our overall level of service?

Very satisfied	Satisfied	← Neither →	Dissatisfied	Very dissatisfied
70.9	18.2	5.5	1.8	3.6

2 How easy to understand was the information/advice provided?

Very easy	Easy	← Neither →	Fairly difficult	Don't know
79.6	13	3.7	1.9	1.9

3 How informative did you find our staff?

Very good	Fairly good	Neither good nor poor	Don’t know
81.5	14.8	1.9	1.9

4 Did we treat you fairly at all times?

Yes	Don’t know
94.4	5.6

5 Were our officers courteous and polite at all times?

Yes	No
98.2	1.8

6 Were you aware of Trading Standards before you had this contact with us?

100% said Yes

7 If Yes to question 6, how did you learn about Trading Standards?

Press / television	Used the service before	Internet	Phone book	Recommended	Don't know
14.6	39.0	4.9	4.9	24.4	12.2

8 How easy was it to make initial contact with us?

Very easy	Fairly easy	← Neither →	Fairly difficult
66.1	28.6	1.8	3.6

9 Did you know it is possible to complain about Council services, including Trading Standards, through our services complaints procedure?

Yes	No
41.1	58.9

Results of Survey of our Customers - Businesses

(All figures are shown as a percentage of the total responses)

1 How satisfied were you with our overall level of service?

Very satisfied	Satisfied	Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
17.6	76.5	5.9

2 How easy to understand was the information/advice provided?

Very easy	Fairly easy	Neither easy nor difficult
23.5	64.7	11.8

3 How informative did you find our staff?

Very good	Fairly good	Neither good nor poor
47.1	35.3	17.6

4 Did we treat you fairly at all times?

100% said Yes

5 Were our officers courteous and polite at all times?

100% said Yes

6 If you made initial contact with us, how easy was it?

100% said Very Easy

7 [Of those who had initiated contact] How did you find out about Trading Standards?

100% said they had used the service before

8 Were you aware of the Trading Standards Service before you had contact with us?

Yes	No
94.1	5.9

9 Did you know it is possible to complain about Council services, including Trading Standards, through our services complaints procedure?

Yes	No
70.6	29.4

10 If we said your business was not meeting its legal requirements:

(a) Did we make it clear to you what you needed to do to meet legal requirements?

Yes	Don’t know
88.9	11.1

(b) Was our response to the problem fair/reasonable?

100% thought that our response was fair/reasonable.

11 Have we been in touch with your business on more than one occasion?

Yes	No
75	25

12 If Yes to question 11, have you been treated consistently?

100% felt they had been treated consistently.

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