Corporate Enforcement Policy consultation

Background

We carry out a wide range of regulatory roles to meet our many statutory duties to protect the public, consumers, workers, communities and the local environment. These are carried out through a combination of scheduled inspections, responding to complaints, issuing licences and offering advice. 

Our work areas include:

• food safety and standards
• workplace health and safety
• private sector housing
• environmental protection
• public health and nuisance
• anti-social behaviour
• animal health and welfare
• licensing
• trading standards
• building control
• planning
• roads, verges and pavements

Our Corporate Enforcement Policy

Our Policy describes the broad approach that we take to enforcement and sets out the following:

• levels of enforcement action available to us
• how we will determine which action is appropriate in the event of non-compliance
• how we will conduct our investigations

It may be supplemented by more detailed enforcement procedures dependent on the specific work involved.

Following good practice standards, we carry out our regulatory and enforcement role in an impartial, open, and consistent manner through activities including education, mediation, providing advice, carrying out inspections, monitoring, and by regulating the activities of individuals and businesses were this is necessary. Compliance is achieved through both informal and formal action and, if necessary, through the courts via prosecutions.

In all activities we carry out we will consider the effectiveness, benefits and cost of the action. In doing so, we aim to help businesses achieve compliance without unnecessary expense.

All our staff have full awareness of the Policy when making an enforcement decision. The Policy is continually monitored and reviews are carried out on completed cases to help us to continually reflect and improve the quality of our service.

What we are consulting on

We have updated our Policy to reflect national standards of good practice set out in the Government's Regulators' Code [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulators-code] and the range of enforcement options available to us.

We would like your feedback on the draft policy. We are particularly interested in hearing from those businesses and individuals who are most affected and who we work with regularly to protect and improve things across County Durham.

Draft Corporate Enforcement Policy (PDF, 307 KB)

Have your say

What happens next

We will look at all feedback received and where relevant update the draft Policy. We hope to present the Policy to our Cabinet in December for approval and once agreed it will be published on our website early next year. It is reviewed every three years or when there are significant changes in regulatory legislation.