The Worcestershire Regulatory Services Board met on 25 September 2025, and among the items discussed was the revenue monitoring report for April to June 2025, a report on funeral director inspections in Worcestershire, activity and performance data for the first quarter of 2025/6, and a briefing on firework controls. The board approved the revenue monitoring report, and noted the reports on funeral director inspections, activity and performance data, and firework controls.

Revenue Monitoring

The board reviewed and approved the Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) Revenue Monitoring report for April to June 2025. The report highlighted a projected £2,000 surplus for 2025/26 and that WRS was now receiving income from all partner councils for temporary event licence applications.

The report also detailed partner councils' liabilities for April to June 2025 in relation to bereavements, and for 2025-26 in relation to pest control and additional technical officers.

• Bereavement costs: Bromsgrove District Council £3,000, Redditch Borough Council £1,000, Worcester City Council £9,000.
• Pest control projected outturn: Redditch Borough Council £8,000, Wychavon District Council £10,000.
• Technical Officer projected outturn: Bromsgrove District Council £9,000, Malvern Hills District Council £7,000, Redditch Borough Council £2,000, Worcester City Council £3,000 (plus £41,000 for gull control), Wychavon District Council £16,000, Wyre Forest District Council £10,000.

The report noted that a 3% pay award had been included in the projected outturn figures, as per the original budget, but the final agreed pay award for 2025-26 was 3.2%, creating additional salary pressure for WRS of £9,000. This would be included in quarter 2 figures and was expected to be managed through existing financial allocation.

Work had already begun on preparing the WRS budget for 2026-27.

Funeral Director Inspections

The board considered a report on funeral director inspections in Worcestershire. The Environmental Health and Trading Standards Manager, WRS, reported that most funeral director businesses in the county demonstrated good standards of care, with those identified as requiring areas for improvement being suitably advised, and that no formal action had been required from WRS in response to inspections.

The report detailed the process of inspections of funeral directors across Worcestershire that was undertaken by WRS between December 2024 and April 2025 on behalf of its partner authorities, following guidance issued by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in May 2024.

Board members expressed surprise at the lack of regulation of the funeral industry, and it was noted that there were two professional bodies for funeral directors in England. Within Worcestershire, the professional bodies were supportive of the inspection programme and cooperated fully with WRS throughout the inspection programme.

The Director of WRS clarified that there was no legislation in place enabling local authorities to undertake inspections of funeral directors and the inspection exercise detailed in the report was undertaken under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Any change to a regular inspection regime would require the Government to introduce appropriate regulations to empower local authorities and come with new burdens funding.

It was clarified that residents should report concerns with funeral directors to the appropriate agencies, for example the Police if the concern was in relation to human remains, and the Worcestershire County Council (WCC) Trading Standards in relation to the mis-selling of funeral plans, although this may of itself be a fraud that the Police would also investigate.

Activity and Performance Data

The Technical Services Manager, Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS), presented the Activity and Performance Data for Quarter 1 2025/26.

• There were 329 programmed interventions undertaken during quarter 1, slightly below the 392 and 391 respectively in the previous two periods.
• 5% of the 329 interventions resulted in businesses being rated as non-compliant (issued a rating of 0, 1, or 2 FHRS score¹).
• The number of health and safety at work cases remained on trend with 56 at quarter 1, compared to 63 last year and 49 two years ago for quarter 1.
• The number of complaints and enquiries about dog control was the lowest for many quarters at only 29.
• The number of reported strays was high at Q1 2025/26 at 426, compared with 304 last year, and 402 the previous one.

A Board Member expressed concern at the rise in the number of stray dogs and it was responded that addressing this remained one of the priorities for WRS and the communications officer was currently working on preparing a communications initiative to focus on this issue.

In Licensing, the number of complaints and enquiries followed the previous slightly downward trend, with 651 at Q1 2025/26 compared to 828 and 740 for the same period in the last two years for quarters 1, and well below the peak of 1026 in the final quarter of 2023/24. It was stated that this was positive and reflected the work done within the service on automation and communications.

Planning support work continued an upward trend, with Q1 figures again exceeding those at the same point in the previous two years, with 977 requests compared to 808 and 763 respectively. There had been a steady increase in the number of planning applications being submitted across Worcestershire and there had been a general increase in enquiries.

This year's hot summer had led to more reports of nuisance, and it was expected the number of nuisance complaints for Q2 2025/26 to be significantly higher than the previous two summer periods.

Board Members were asked to promote the work undertaken by WRS across six partner authorities to all elected members as it was apparent from recent meetings attended by WRS officers that some district/borough councillors remained unaware of the remit and work being carried out by WRS.

A Board Member asked about the licensing of vapes and vape shops. The Director of WRS responded that the proposed Tobacco and Vapes Bill, when passed, would provide powers to introduce a licensing scheme for the retail sale of vapes and tobacco products, but it remained unclear which body would be responsible for the licensing regime or its enforcement. The existing regulatory regime that addresses illegal tobacco and vapes was the responsibility of Worcestershire County Council (WCC) and its Trading Standards service. There was no clarity at this stage as to whether district or county councils would be responsible for licensing.

Question was raised as to whether the increased number of Environmental Information Requests (EIRs) received was placing operational pressure on WRS. The Technical Services Manager, WRS, stated that a review of WRS approach to responding to EIRs was being undertaken, it being acknowledged that there was increased demand from the public for this kind of information. It was highlighted that the WRS tried to publish information relating to common types of queries on its website.

A Board Member referred to several districts within Worcestershire reporting large presence of 'Uber' vehicles which were not licensed within that district and queried what powers WRS had to address this. The Director of WRS responded that WRS had limited powers in this area as when Government introduced the Devolution Act in the mid-2010s, private hire vehicles were allowed to be licensed by one council but operate in another area, and local licensing authorities were not in a position to demand that 'Uber' registered taxi drivers or vehicles be licenced with a specific district area.

It was recognised that many taxis operating within Worcestershire were now licensed by City of Wolverhampton Council, and that this was true for many parts of the country, particularly urban areas. It was reported that officers had been engaging with colleagues at Wolverhampton to arrange joint enforcement and compliance visits at night, allowing taxis licensed in Wolverhampton to be in scope of the enforcement operations.

Firework Controls

The Director of WRS introduced a report on firework controls, stating that it was in response to a range of issues experienced by councillors at both district and county level in relation to fireworks. The report was intended to provide support for elected members in dealing with these questions as it was highlighted that the legal position provided local authorities with very limited influence over the use of fireworks by members of the public.

It was noted that Worcestershire County Council (WCC) was the licensing authority for the storage of explosives. The WCC Trading Standards team was also responsible for enforcing the legal provisions requiring that fireworks sold in the county be manufactured to the relevant standard and that fireworks were not sold to minors (under 18s).

The use of fireworks was not a licensable activity under the Licensing Act 2003, so public firework displays were not licensed by district councils. People undertaking public displays must ensure the health and safety of those attending and also observe any civil law duty of care they might have to those in the vicinity, but beyond this, controls were limited, and councils had few powers to address activities.

Most firework displays were one-off events and, because of the transitory nature of noise from such displays, it was likely that a single display, by itself, could not constitute a statutory nuisance that could be dealt with under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, especially if the terminal hours outlined in law are observed. Currently there was a noise limit for fireworks sold via retail of 120dB, although pressure groups were campaigning to have this reduced to 90dB.

The law specified cut-off (curfew) times for the use of fireworks which was 11pm for all nights except for bonfire night, when the cut off was midnight and 1am for New Year, Diwali and Chinese New Year celebrations, and this was enforced by the Police.

A Board Member asked whether any testing of fireworks was undertaken. The Director of WRS responded that testing of firework products for compliance was expensive, with only a small number of testing facilities in the UK, which meant that trading standards officers relied primarily on product labelling checks to establish compliance and whether legal fireworks were being sold.

It was requested a briefing note be developed from this paper and that action be taken to circulate this to all elected members across the six partner authorities. It was also requested that the potential effect of fireworks on ex-service personnel be added to the report alongside the potential detriment to animals and others.