Wiltshire Council’s trading standards department has been privatised via the back door without any local consultation – and without most members of the Tory-controlled council knowing about.
The accusation has come from Terry Chivers, an independent member of the unitary authority, who has tabled five questions for council leader Jane Scott to answer at the council’s next meeting.
“It came as a total shock to me when I received a phone call from a local resident asking why he had to phone a call centre in Cumbria, to make a complaint, Councillor Chivers told Marlborough News Online. “He also pointed out that when he was taking to the adviser they didn’t even know where Trowbridge was.
“The first thing that I have done was to make a few phone calls, and was told the service had been transferred to the Citizens Advice Bureau. Talking to fellow councillors it seems clear to me that very few know of this, not even members of the ruling Conservative Group.
I also spoke to a very senior Officer of the Council who didn’t seem to know this had happened.”
He added: “Do they never learn we all know what happened recently at the time of the floods, we were being put through to call centres hundreds of miles away that in many cases couldn’t help.”
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