Business information

What we do

Hertfordshire Trading Standards
Protecting Consumers : Working with Business

Our role is to safeguard the interests of consumers and the county’s business community. Hertfordshire has one million consumers and is home to over 30,000 businesses, including the national and international headquarters of many companies.

We strive to protect consumers against poor quality goods and services. By advising businesses on legal and quality matters we can make a positive contribution to consumers’ quality of life and Hertfordshire’s economic prosperity.

If you wish to give feedback about the Trading Standards pages on this website, or about the way we undertake our work then please select the signpost “Trading Standards Feedback” from the internal links.

Helping consumers

We are working in partnership with Consumer Direct to offer you advice.

Each year Hertfordshire Trading Standards receives over 25,000 contacts. About half of these are a result of residents of Hertfordshire contacting Consumer Direct (East of England). Other contacts will be as a result of complaints / enquiries to other Consumer Direct Regions or from direct consumer contact by other means.

Advice & guidance is given on a wide range of issues to enable consumers to pursue their grievance with retailers and traders to a satisfactory conclusion.

We also carry out market research to monitor trends in consumer attitudes and behaviour and to identify emerging issues.



Working with businesses

By providing positive advice to manufacturers, distributors and
retailers we can help to maintain and improve the quality of goods and the standard of services. Doing so helps to minimise
consumer concerns.

Whatever the product or service Hertfordshire Trading Standards help to ensure that it is safe, of good quality, accurately described and the correct weight and measure. We regularly check a wide range of products to verify their content, composition and labelling. We also monitor the accuracy of advertisements.
In partnership with the farming community we help prevent the
spread of disease in animals.

A calibration service is provided to support industry, enabling
equipment used in quality systems to be matched to
National Standards - see back page.

Regulation - helping consumers and business

Over 30,000 contacts each year ensure that businesses and traders comply with regulations from Westminster and Brussels. This helps to protect consumers and ensures honest
businesses are protected from unfair competition.
Trading Standards can prosecute those that persistently or deliberately break trading laws. Many court cases arise from consumer complaints, while others result from targeted visits to businesses or investigations.



Hertfordshire Trading Standards

Our aim is to ensure that:

• Products meet safety standards
• Goods have necessary labels which accurately describe them and include relevant instructions and warnings
• Food composition meets legal requirements
• Weighing and measuring equipment used by the trade is accurate e.g. weighing machines, petrol pumps, pub optics
• Customers are not misled by pricing claims or descriptions of goods and services
• Credit, and other agreements, meet legal requirements.

We Work by:

• Enforcing fair trading laws
• Advising business on how to comply with relevant legislation
• Investigating complaints from consumers and the business community
• Monitoring advertisements, brochures and unsolicited mail
• Inspecting goods at all stages of production, distribution and point of sale
• Organising briefings and seminars to keep business informed of key issues.

To the consumer....
If you have a complaint about the pricing, quantity or safety of goods or services, we want to hear from you.
If we suspect that fair trading laws have been broken we can investigate and, if necessary, take action. We aim to answer your enquiries within five working days; most are handled within 24 hours.