The Brent and Harrow Trading Standards team is down to 2.37 full-time officers against a plan for six. It looked into 427 Harrow cases in six months.
The Trading Standards service that covers Harrow is working with 2.37 full-time officers. Its own budget plan assumes six. The figure is in the service’s mid-year report for 2026/27, which goes to the Brent and Harrow Trading Standards Joint Advisory Board on Tuesday 3 November.
The report says the service lost an experienced enforcement officer to another borough’s Trading Standards team at the start of the period. An assistant regulatory services officer also left, on promotion within the council. In the report’s words, “our current staff numbers consist of 2.37 full time equivalents for both Brent and Harrow.”
Its targets for the year “assume full staffing of 3.5 Enforcement Officers in Brent and 2.5 in Harrow”, the report adds. The papers are in the agenda pack on Harrow Council’s committee website.
Who runs Trading Standards in Harrow
Harrow does not run its own team. It shares a service with Brent: Brent Council employs the staff and Harrow pays towards the cost. The board’s role is advisory, and it meets three times a year, according to the minutes of its June meeting, which are in the same pack.
Trading Standards deals with rogue traders and doorstep crime, unsafe and counterfeit goods, illicit tobacco and vapes, and sales of age-restricted products to under-18s. In Harrow it also licenses fireworks sellers, a job that sits with the licensing team in Brent.
What the team did from April to September
The mid-year report covers the first six months of the financial year. It gives these figures for the two boroughs together, except where it splits them:
- 2,198 service requests received from all sources
- 957 looked at further by the team: 427 about a Harrow business or resident and 530 about Brent
- 223 fully investigated and resolved: 78 in Harrow and 145 in Brent
- 26 businesses visited over illicit tobacco, and 56 other enforcement visits
- 6 businesses tested for underage knife sales; all of them asked for proof of age
- 16 letters of warning, 2 simple cautions and 2 cases recommended for prosecution
- 3 cases concluded at magistrates’ court, involving five defendants, with £10,133 in fines and £6,376 in costs
- one Proceeds of Crime confiscation order of £819,472
The report does not say which borough the court cases or the confiscation order came from. It notes that the service’s two financial investigators also work for other councils.
Of the 427 Harrow matters the team looked at further, 78 were fully investigated and resolved by the end of September. That is about one in five. In Brent the share was higher, 145 of 530, or a little over one in four.
Two apprentices, one vacancy
The report says two trainee Trading Standards officers joined in September on Level 6 apprenticeships. They will “take on tasks, helping to ease workloads”. At the June meeting, officers said one of the apprenticeships was funded by the Department of Health and Social Care to work on illicit tobacco and vapes, with that money expected to end in 2028 to 2029.
The vacant enforcement post is being advertised. The report warns of “a national shortage of experienced Trading Standards Officers” and says the recruitment market “remains very challenging”.
Freedom of Information requests are adding to the load. The service answered 13 for each borough in the six months, on subjects from vaping data to weighbridges.
What it says it will focus on
The report lists the service’s priorities for October 2026 to March 2027:
- illicit tobacco, illegal vapes and underage sales, including new rules under the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026
- closer work with the police, public health and other council teams
- concentrating on serious cases
A second report to the same meeting, on organised crime using high street shops, says local enforcement experience “mirrors trends identified nationally”. It names convenience stores, vape shops, fast food outlets and “American candy” stores as the business types national enforcement has linked to illicit trading. It does not name any business in Harrow.
What it means for you
- To report a trader, start with the Citizens Advice consumer helpline. The service says complaints reach it that way and are triaged, with criminal matters passed on to Trading Standards.
- If a doorstep trader is pressuring you to pay for building work, the report says the team offers a rapid response to doorstep crime. It had no urgent callouts in the six months, but did investigate complaints about building and renovation work.
- If you see fireworks sold to children or stored unsafely, Harrow’s fireworks operation, including Trading Standards visits to retailers, runs to 10 November. The council’s hotline is 020 4604 2775, 7pm to 10pm. Our report on the fireworks patrols has the details.
- The meeting is public. It is online at 6pm on Tuesday 3 November, and the agenda says the press and public can watch the webcast.
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