Public Protection - Compliance and Enforcement Policy

6.1      Advice to business will be provided proactively and in response to specific requests for guidance.  Such advice will be given clearly and in plain language and will be confirmed in writing on request.  Legal requirements will be clearly distinguished from best practice, codes of practice, guidance, and other advice.

6.2      Officers will be encouraged to promote compliance with legal requirements, by raising awareness of relevant standards by means of media releases, distributing leaflets, social media, face-to-face contact and through business and community partnerships.

6.3      In offering advice to businesses, we will act promptly. Those businesses with which it has a Primary Authority agreement will be given priority when heavy demands are placed on limited staff resources.  The Primary Authority arrangements of other local authorities will be respected.

6.4      The Service supports the Government's 'golden rules' for guidance on regulation and states it should be:

• Based on a good understanding of users
• Designed with input from users and their representatives
• Organised around the user's way of working
• Easy for the intended users to understand
• Designed to provide users with confidence in how to comply with the law (i.e. no use of legal disclaimers of liability)
• Issued in good time
• Easy to access
• Reviewed and improved

6.5      Businesses approaching the Service for advice on any non-compliance can, in the main, do so without fear of automatically triggering enforcement action.  Nevertheless, there will be occasion in the circumstances outlined in 2.4 above, or when there is a history of non-compliance or it is deemed necessary, where after due consideration, enforcement action is unavoidable.