As the Unison representative in Glasgow City Council’s Trading Standards Service I was interested in David Leask’s article ("Public at risk as service collapses", The Herald, September 28) and your accompanying Leader Comment ("Trading standards problem raises issues with councils"). Such support for the work of the Trading Standards Service is to be welcomed, especially when set against a background of unrelenting cuts and a diminution of the service.
I was especially interested to read that MSP Elaine Murray was planning to ask the Scottish Government about the training of new trading standards officers and it is important that this is raised as an issue as well.
However, it is important to remember that this state of affairs has not simply arisen during the watch of the present administration but that the state of trading standards bears the mark of the previous Labour Westminster’s Government.
In 2004, Gordon Brown commissioned a report from the businessman Sir Philip Hampton into the operation of regulatory services in the UK and the so-called “war” against red tape. This report was then used by local authorities as a useful justification for administering cuts in trading standards services.
By far the worst of these single cuts took place in 2005-06 within Labour-led Glasgow City Council. A 40 per cent cut was administered on the service in one blow.
There has been over the years a “matching down” of these cuts across Scotland. The Conservative Government has presided over equally devastating cuts in England.
David Leask described this as a Cinderella service. He is right save in one respect: no political party is in any position to act as a Prince Charming in this tale.
Alex Gordon,
Depute Conditions of Service Officer,
Unison Glasgow City Branch,
84 Bell Street,
Glasgow.
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