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Trading Standards was once known as Weights and Measures as its main activity was to ensure that measurements and weights in commerce were tested to ensure their quality and accuracy. More recently, the role of Trading Standards has been broadened to encompass a wide variety of activities outlined by the Food Standards Agency and the Office of Fair Trading which produce legislation to protect the public such as:

• The Food Safety Act 1990 which is concerned ensuring that food production adheres to certain standards and that their labels and descriptions are controlled.
• The Trade Descriptions Act 1968 which ensures that descriptions of goods and services are not misleading.
• The Consumer Protection Act 1987 which applies safety standards to goods being supplied and includes the prohibition of misleading price claims.

More recent policy has been aimed at areas such as Energy Doorstep Selling, Consumer Insurance Law and Postal Scams.

Working in Trading Standards essentially involves enforcing legislation to protect the public and providing advice to businesses to ensure that goods and services are supplied in compliance with that legislation. Trading Standards jobs can be extremely varied as you'll be dealing with many different cases which will involve extensive liaison with members of the public, businesses and government agencies such as the Police, Environmental Health and Revenue and Customs.