Posted By IOSH Web Manager The moderators have agreed to post this response from Hampshire County Council. Hampshire County Council Trading Standards Service created the Buy With Confidence (BWC) scheme back in 1999 and have been developing it ever since. This Service, like many others, receives regular enquiries from our residents who are concerned about rogue traders. Quite often, they have seen a "Builders from Hell " type programme, and make the assumption that all traders are like those shown on TV. They therefore call us to ask, "Who should I not go to for my work?" We always struggled to give a useful answer to these enquiries - partly because of restrictions under data protection, but also because we know that not all the complaints we receive are justified . With these thoughts in mind, we decided it would be much more beneficial to our residents and our many excellent local businesses, to have a scheme which approves good traders. Membership of BWC is open to all business types and we have developed a detailed audit process to ensure that all members meet high standards of legal compliance in relation to trading standards issues and provide good customer service. The vast majority of our members are in the home improvement and car sales and servicing sectors as, nationally, these are the most complained about by consumers and the ones we have the most requests for information about. The audit checks include: ? County Court Judgements ? Financial Checks ? Insolvency/bankruptcy checks ? Criminal Convictions -where appropriate ? Consumer Credit Licence (where appropriate) ? Membership of any claimed trade associations or professional bodies ? Trading Standards Services' own enquiry databases and national consumer complaints database check ? Customer references ? Compliance with all Trading Standards related legislation, including terms and conditions of contracts. The references we take up are selected by us from the company's invoices in order to give as much independence as possible. The checks are all designed to ensure that the business deals fairly and honestly with the consumer. The exact nature of the checks will depend on the type and size of the business. It is true that BWC cannot cover every piece of legislation which impacts on our applicants, as no scheme can, but does work hard to achieve its stated aims. We have established good partnership links with a number of trade associations to use their own membership checks as part of our audits. Typical checks include CORGI membership where required or compliance with Part E of the Building Regulations. To date we have nearly 400 members in Hampshire and over 1500 across the south east region of trading standards authorities. We monitor feedback on members on a regular basis and conduct re-audits on a periodic basis. We rigorously monitor complaints and if problems arise, we suspend members while the problems are addressed. I would stress that this is fairly rare because we work hard to keep our members informed about legal changes and about any complaints. We never claim our members are perfect, but they have to pass a thorough audit lasting several months on average, and must always respond to consumers whenever problems arise. We constantly review our procedures and would welcome information which may help us develop best practice. If it is the case that a specific qualification or accreditation is required in order to establish competency in any field of business, we would seek to amend our membership criteria accordingly. As a result of the information we have received, we will review requirements for this trade sector and take appropriate action if that is shown to be required. I feel it would be useful to us to open discussions with the IOSH in relation to the health and safety issues and how we can further help the public and our members. This thread has now been locked by the moderators who ask that IOSH members wishing to continue the discussion should do so by opening a thread on the IOSH Members Forum. Regards, Angela Wheatcroft