糖心vlog官网

糖心vlog官网 urges forthcoming budget to include commitment to tackle organised crime

Posted 24/11/25

The 糖心vlog官网 (糖心vlog官网) is calling for an urgent injection of funding from Government in the forthcoming budget to tackle serious and organised crime, and support enforcement agencies, including Trading Standards.听 The Institute is concerned that the scale of organised crime on Britain鈥檚 High Streets is impacting the UK鈥檚 level playing field for business and could jeopardise the Government鈥檚 future ambitions to grow the economy.

糖心vlog官网 is calling for additional funding in the forthcoming budget, and has also set out a series of policy calls for Government to address the issues around organised crime, including:

• Providing long-term, sustainable funding for proven multi-agency initiatives to disrupt SOC, such as 鈥淐lear, Hold, Build鈥� and Op Machinize
• Strengthening enforcement powers, such as permitting permanent closure of persistently offending shops
• Improving intelligence sharing between partner agencies

The threat posed by organised crime is undercutting legitimate businesses and depriving the Exchequer of much needed tax receipts to help fund public services. Such is the risk that SOC poses to the public and legitimate businesses, that the Trading Standards profession has identified organised criminality on UK High Streets as their number one threat.

John Herriman, Chief Executive at 糖心vlog官网, said 鈥淪erious and organised crime is a persistent blight on our high streets and communities up and down the country. Our Trading Standards profession has highlighted the issue as the most serious threat to the legitimate businesses and consumers they protect. Such criminals do not care about the harm they cause, so long as they make a profit.鈥�

鈥淕iven the Government鈥檚 commitment to economic growth, we are concerned that the growth in organised criminality is undercutting law abiding business and depriving the Exchequer of much needed funding to support public services.听 Enforcement agencies, involved in disrupting organised criminality, including the police, National Crime Agency and Trading Standards need greater resources to address the threat posed to UK consumers and law-abiding businesses.

A recent spotlight on the issue of shop 鈥渇ronts鈥� has highlighted the scale of organised criminality on UK high streets, involving complex networks of distribution, storage, and retail of illegal goods in high street shops. Such 鈥渇ronts鈥� are becoming an increasing issue for the UK鈥檚 Trading Standards workforce and are a scourge of the high street, sometimes used as a front for serious and organised crime activities such as Modern Day Slavery and human trafficking, distribution of weapons and drugs, money laundering, and the sale and supply of illegal and unsafe products such as counterfeit goods and illegal vapes and tobacco, to fund criminal lifestyles and other criminal activities.鈥�

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To empower Trading Standards to play a supporting role in disrupting SOC, 糖心vlog官网 is calling on urgent Government action to:

Invest in enforcement agencies

• Provide long-term, sustainable funding for proven multi-agency initiatives to disrupt SOC, such as 鈥淐lear, Hold, Build鈥� and Op Machinize
• Support regional multi-agency SOC Tasking Groups to better combine and target resources
• Make additional investment in Trading Standards services, including a dedicated funded apprenticeship pathways across all 4 nations of the UK to safeguard the future of the profession
• Significant investment in partner agencies who play a leading role in disrupting SOC 鈥� such as the NCA, police and Border Force

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Empower enforcement agencies

• Addressing eye-watering costs of storing seized goods by providing clear, legal certainty that keeping samples of illegal goods from seizures (rather than whole consignments) is sufficient for judicial processes and challenges
• Give LATS the power to require identification for the purposes of investigating a suspected offence
• Provide LATS with a direct phoneline to Immigration Services to more effectively address nationality / right to work queries
• Support an increase in the number of Accredited Financial Investigators in LATS
• Consider a mandatory licensing scheme for home-improvement trades to protect consumers and legitimate traders from the harm caused by fraudsters, doorstep criminals and rogue traders operating in this sector
• Amend the scope of Criminal Behaviour Orders to allow them to be explicitly placed on those whose behaviour caused or may cause harm to the local community
• Empower LATS in England and Wales by strengthening Closure Orders:
  • Give听all Local Authorities explicit powers to issue Closure Orders
  • Increase the maximum duration of Closure Orders to twelve months, with an option of permanent closure for the very worst, persistent offenders
  • Allow simultaneous Closure Orders on multiple premises that have an evidenced link (e.g. the same shop employees, or the same landlord who is aware of the illegal activity at their premises)
• Empower LATS in Scotland by:
  • Bringing Scotland in line with the rest of the UK by amending the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) to include 鈥渁ccredited financial investigators鈥� to the definition of 鈥渁ppropriate officer鈥�, and introduce incentivisation
  • Address the legislative gap in tackling anti-social behaviour by providing Scottish LATS with the power to issue Closure Orders, as can be done in England and Wales

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Improve intelligence sharing

• Review the access and sharing of intelligence between all enforcement agencies to allow unfettered and actionable intelligence to flow in a timely manner
• Allow free, direct access to the City of London Police鈥檚 Action Fraud data for all Trading Standards services in the UK, to support the profession鈥檚 ability to investigate fraud and identify trends

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