LoginProfile: A Job Well Done
Since he began his career 60 years ago, Peter Tompkins has seen widespread change in Trading Standards. Now, as he prepares to take a well-earned rest from his duties, he reflects on the past, present and future of the profession.
Richard Young, Editorial Lead Writer
Posted 13 January 2025 | JoTS Online
Content Tags: Analysis|Inside Trading Standards|National
As someone who has worked at all levels of the Trading Standards profession, from rookie recruit up to head of service, Peter Tompkins has seen it all. He started his career in 1964 when Trading Standards was still known as ‘Weights and Measures’, decimalisation had yet to be introduced, and the demographics – and duties – of the profession were very different. He has worked at local authorities including Worcestershire, Dudley and Leicestershire councils among others, and for the past few years has been based part-time at Sandwell Trading Standards, where he advises businesses in the West Midlands borough about their consumer protection responsibilities.
When I speak with Peter in the autumn of 2024, he is preparing to finally step down after six decades spent doing what he loves. So how did he get into Trading Standards in the first place? “This is going to shock you: I decided I’d had enough of college,” he laughs. “I said to my mum, I think I’m going to go and find a job. She opened our local paper, looked at the jobs page and said, ‘There’s one here: it’s outdoors, with good prospects, dealing with weights and measures’. I had never heard of weights and measures, but being outdoors with good prospects appealed. We didn’t have a phone in those days so Mr Owen, who was to become my boss, came and knocked on our door one Saturday morning and said ‘the job’s yours if you want it’. I started, and I’ve loved it ever since.”
I’m surprised and quite proud of how well the profession has managed to continue to hold its head up after the sort of cuts that we’ve had over the past 14 years
Signs of progress
Back in 1964, before the arrival of laptops, emails and intelligence databases, the day-to-day life of a Weights and Measures Inspector was very different from today. But some things never change, and the broad array of experiences which the job presented back then is still often cited by Trading Standards Officers as the thing they most enjoy. That is certainly the case for Peter. “I’ve always loved the variety,” he says. “You get to go into all sorts of different places.”
One of Peter’s early memories is of visiting the Walter Somers forge in Halesowen, which later became embroiled in the ‘Supergun’ affair involving components for a weapon destined for Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. “There was a big hoo-ha about whether or not they’d got the proper export license,” he remembers. “We used to go in there and watch the crankshafts for huge petrol tankers and ocean liners being made.
“The next minute, you’d be on a farm conducting an ‘Appeal to Cow’ inspection; if a milk sample on its way to the dairy was found to be suspect, we would go to the farm and take a sample direct from the cow. This was then used as a comparison with the original sample to show that the milk had been tampered with.
“Or you might find yourself in a pharmacy buying medicines to see whether they were within date.”
Responsibilities for checking medicines’ use-by dates are no longer part of Trading Standards’ remit, having long since switched over to the MHRA. That’s just one of many changes to have occurred during the past 60 years – but which, I wonder, has been the most notable? “The main thing is that we’ve got about an equal number of women as men in the profession,” says Peter.
“When I started in 1964 in Worcestershire, there was not a single woman in the department. We had three offices, and not one of them had a woman. The first female typist started in around 1965 and then as things progressed, we got more and more women trainees. That mainly happened as we went into the seventies, from about ’74 onwards. Now I think probably there are more women trainees coming into the profession, and certainly more women at senior levels.”
According to CTSI data, the Trading Standards profession is now about 56% female – a remarkable shift, and one which Peter believes should be celebrated.
Another change for the better, Peter believes, can be seen in some of the legislation Trading Standards is responsible for enforcing, as well as in a more conciliatory approach to certain types of non-compliance. “At one time, we were much more orientated towards prosecutions, and ‘going after the bad guys’,” he says. “I’ve taken lots of prosecutions – and I’m never happy with them. I always end up thinking ‘there but for the grace of God go I’. There are very few cases where I’m absolutely sure that the trader has done it all deliberately.
“In fact some of them, looking back now, would appear to most people to be ridiculous because of changes in the law. The very first prosecution that I took was under the Shops Act [later the Sunday Trading Act], for selling goods on a Sunday. These days, people would look aghast at you for prosecuting somebody for selling on a Sunday.
“I’m not a prosecutions man, really, which is unlike a lot of my generation,” he adds. “I like talking to people. Most of my job now is to advise people, mainly on food matters, talking about allergens and how to make sure that businesses don’t cause any damage to their customers by not asking the right questions. I like explaining to businesses how best they can safeguard their own backs and those of their customers.”
History repeating
Of course, not everything in Trading Standards has changed for the better since 1964. ‘Austerity measures’ have strained the profession to breaking point, with services slashed and Officers around the country having to do more with less.
Peter was appointed Trading Standards Manager at Dudley Council in 1986, and at the time had a workforce of 27 working alongside him – a number which declined over the following decade. “At Dudley, we were making cuts during the John Major years until 1997, but they were done gradually,” he says. “But under David Cameron, it was just a complete slash-and-burn regime. They just cut without thinking of any consequences or how we were going to continue to provide a service. I’m surprised and quite proud of how well the profession has managed to continue to hold its head up after the sort of cuts that we’ve had over the past 14 years. But we’re gradually getting back on our feet.”
What, I ask, justifies that optimism? “I think everything is cyclical,” Peter explains. “During the 1970s, the Office of Fair Trading was established. The Trade Descriptions Act came in, and the Fair Trade Act, and the Consumer Protection Act. There was a big boom in trying to promote fair trading and protect consumers at that point.
“And then that was knocked back, and then came back again. It just goes up and down. I think we’re starting to get back to the realisation that you can’t just do away with all regulation and not have any consequences,” he adds.
The tragedy of Grenfell Tower and the findings of the subsequent inquiry illustrate the true cost of deregulation and reduced protections, Peter believes: “I think that woke people up to the fact that you’ve got to have a certain degree of regulation. And if you don’t, then you’re going to have trouble.”
Meaningful, substantive improvements will only come about through increased funding though, he says.
“We need sufficient funding to be able to provide a proper service to the public, and I include traders in that. If honest traders are being undercut by people who are not trading fairly, that’s going to have an effect on them, and there’ll be a race towards the bottom.”
Finally, does Peter have any words of wisdom to impart to new Trading Standards recruits? “At the beginning of my career I was enthusiastic and I still am – and I think most of the people that start today are exactly the same,” he says.
“Get your necessary qualifications and take it from there. I always had good people with me that I could rely on, both when I was junior and when I got more senior. All the way through, I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve worked with,” he says. “Just go for it. That’s all I could say to them really. Go for it. Enjoy it!”
PLEASE NOTE: This content originally appeared on our standalone Journal of Trading Standards website (www.journaloftradingstandards.co.uk), which we are gradually migrating over to the Journal's new home on the CTSI website. Please bear with us while we complete this process. This will not affect the production of our Print Edition.
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Content Tags: Analysis|Inside Trading Standards|National
