LoginCreating Possibility: Vincent Searle on Visibility, Inclusion and the Future of Trading Standards
Visibility is more than awareness, it's a gateway to opportunity. Vincent Searle, Principal Trading Standards Officer & Team Leader at Newham Council and a member of the London Branch’s Race and Equalities Working Group, discusses widening access to Trading Standards, supporting future leaders and building a profession that reflects the communities it serves.
What experiences have shaped your determination to make Trading Standards more visible and accessible to others?
I have spent much of my career working in communities where diversity is not an abstract concept or an organisational aspiration; it is simply everyday life. That has shaped how I think about public service, leadership and, increasingly, visibility.
One of the contradictions of Trading Standards is that we undertake work that touches almost every part of people's lives, yet the profession itself remains relatively unknown and does not always reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. If people cannot see a profession, understand it or recognise themselves within it, we should not be surprised when they do not imagine themselves joining it.
That matters particularly when we talk about widening participation. Talent is distributed far more widely than opportunity, professional networks or knowledge of particular career pathways. Some young people grow up surrounded by people who can explain professions, open doors, provide introductions or help them navigate unfamiliar systems. Others may have exactly the same potential but considerably less access to that social and professional capital.
My determination to make Trading Standards visible therefore comes from something deeper than promoting the profession. Visibility, to me, is a form of access.
Throughout my career, and particularly through the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), London Branch, Race & Equalities Working Group (REWG), I have become increasingly conscious that those of us who have established ourselves within a profession inherit a responsibility to make the route behind us easier to see. I do not believe success should simply change the individual who achieves it; where possible, it should increase the possibilities available to those coming afterwards.
That principle has been expressed powerfully by civil rights and labour leader César Chávez:
“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community.” - César Chávez
That is why I communicate so much about Trading Standards, why I support outreach and why I care about representation. We cannot expect the next generation to aspire to opportunities they have never been shown exist.
The challenge for us is therefore not simply to ask, “How do we attract more diverse talent?” Perhaps the more searching question is: “How visible, accessible and navigable have we made the profession to people who do not already know how to find us?”
That distinction really matters to me.
Thinking back to the most recent REACH event you attended, which conversation or encounter has stayed with you, and why?
What resonated with me was not one isolated conversation as much as a change I could see taking place in the room.
When the apprentices spoke, they did so with authority about their work, their responsibilities and their routes into the profession. At that point, something quite important happened. Trading Standards stopped being something being explained to young people by established professionals and became something demonstrated to them by people much closer to their own stage of life.
That distinction fascinated me.
There is an important difference between telling somebody that an opportunity is available to them and enabling them to see someone with whom they can identify already occupying that space. The first provides information; the second can alter somebody's perception of what is possible.
For young people from communities historically underrepresented in particular professions, that visibility can be especially powerful. Representation is sometimes discussed as though its principal purpose is making organisations look more diverse. I think that seriously understates its value. At its best, representation expands the imagination. It challenges the internal question many people carry into unfamiliar professional spaces: “Is somewhere like this really for someone like me?”
Watching the apprentices engage with that audience reminded me that sometimes the most powerful careers literature is a person standing in front of you.
That is what has stayed with me. We were ostensibly there to talk about careers, but what was really being exchanged was possibility.
What did the apprentices bring to the event, and what do you think they gained from representing Trading Standards there?
The apprentices brought something that those of us further into our careers simply cannot manufacture; proximity.
They are close enough to the beginning of their professional journeys to remember the uncertainty, questions and decisions that accompany entering an unfamiliar profession, while already having sufficient experience to speak credibly about what Trading Standards actually involves.
That made them exceptionally powerful ambassadors.
They did not need to present themselves as finished products. In many respects, that was precisely their strength. Young people could see development happening in real time: people learning, contributing, taking responsibility and finding their professional voice.
I also think the exchange worked in both directions.
By representing Trading Standards publicly, the apprentices were not simply helping us promote the profession; they were developing confidence, professional identity, communication skills and an understanding that their voices already carry value. There is something profoundly developmental about moving from “I am learning this profession” to “I can represent this profession.”
We should not underestimate that transition.
If we genuinely want diverse future leadership, we cannot wait until somebody reaches management before giving them visibility, influence or a platform. Leadership development begins much earlier, when people are trusted to contribute, encouraged to speak and given opportunities to discover that their perspective matters.
So I saw apprentices at REACH, but I also saw something else: the early architecture of future professional leadership.
After a young person discovers Trading Standards through an event such as REACH, what would help them take the next step towards joining the profession?
This is where I believe outreach has to mature from inspiration into infrastructure.
A young person can leave an event enthused about Trading Standards, but enthusiasm has a relatively short shelf life if the next step is difficult to find. If we generate aspiration without creating a navigable route into opportunity, we risk creating a very positive moment rather than a meaningful pathway.
The journey after an event should therefore be remarkably simple: I am interested. Where do I go? Who can I speak to? What qualifications do I need? What opportunities exist now? What can I do next?
That could mean clearer entry pathways, a central point for apprenticeship and career opportunities, mentoring or ambassador networks, work-experience opportunities, follow-up engagement and stronger relationships with schools, colleges, universities and organisations such as REACH.
We also need to recognise that widening access is not achieved simply by opening a door. People need to know the door exists, understand what lies behind it and believe they have a realistic prospect of walking through it.
That is why I increasingly think about the difference between access and accessibility. An opportunity may technically be open to everyone while remaining considerably easier for some people to discover, understand or navigate than others.
The real test of successful outreach should therefore not be how many people attended an event or visited a stand, important though those measures are. It should ultimately be whether curiosity becomes engagement, engagement becomes application, application becomes entry, and entry becomes progression.
Inclusion becomes meaningful when the pathway continues after the photograph has been taken and the exhibition stand has been packed away.
What is the one thing you would most like CTSI to take from your experience of working to widen access to Trading Standards?
I would ask CTSI to recognise that widening access is not peripheral to the future of Trading Standards. It is workforce strategy.
For me, that is the fundamental point.
We sometimes place diversity, outreach, recruitment, professional development and workforce resilience into separate organisational conversations. In reality, they are deeply interconnected. A profession concerned about future capacity cannot afford to overlook talent because traditional recruitment routes repeatedly reach the same audiences.
There is a quotation attributed to social entrepreneur Leila Janah that captures the challenge with remarkable economy:
“Talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not.” - Leila Janah
The question is therefore not whether widening access is the right thing to do; although I believe it unquestionably is. The strategic question is whether Trading Standards can remain resilient, innovative and representative if we fail to broaden where we look for talent and how we develop it once it arrives.
My experience through REACH has shown me that there is no shortage of curiosity, intelligence or ambition among young diverse people. The challenge is connecting that potential to the profession.
I would therefore like widening participation to be understood not as charitable outreach to underrepresented communities, but as an investment by the profession in its own future.
That changes the conversation considerably.
We stop asking what inclusion costs us and begin asking what unrealised talent costs us when we fail to achieve it.
Beyond careers outreach, what one change could CTSI or employers make to widen access to Trading Standards?
I would focus on sponsorship as well as mentorship.
Mentoring is extremely valuable because it gives people advice, confidence and perspective. Sponsorship goes one step further: it means somebody is prepared to mention your name when you are not in the room, encourage you towards an opportunity you may not have considered, invite you into a professional space you have not previously occupied or actively help make your ability visible.
That distinction matters because careers do not progress through competence alone. Exposure, networks, confidence and opportunity all play a part.
For people entering a profession without established professional networks, the absence of that informal infrastructure can be significant. We should therefore be thoughtful about who receives stretch opportunities, who sits on panels, who attends strategic meetings, who represents the organisation externally, whose work is publicly recognised and who is encouraged to apply for leadership opportunities.
None of that means lowering standards. Quite the opposite.
Equity is not about reducing the height of the bar; it is about examining whether everyone with the ability to clear it has been given a reasonable opportunity to reach it.
Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, expressed the importance of claiming access to spaces of influence in characteristically memorable terms:
“If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” - Shirley Chisholm
A structured sponsorship approach could help convert our commitment to diversity into something tangible: not simply recruiting people from different backgrounds, but deliberately ensuring that talent from across the profession becomes visible, developed and connected to opportunity.
Recruitment may diversify who enters the room. Sponsorship can help diversify who eventually influences what happens within it.
You have said that racial equality and inclusion must be embedded throughout the year rather than concentrated around awareness months. What would that commitment look like in practice?
Black History Month matters enormously. It creates space to remember history, celebrate achievement, amplify voices and confront experiences that have too often been marginalised. However, I also think we should be ambitious enough to ask what happens on 1st November.
For me, year-round commitment means moving from commemoration to culture.
It means “Black” colleagues and professionals being visible not only when the subject is race. Their expertise should be sought when we are discussing enforcement, leadership, innovation, consumer protection, policy, technology, professional development and the future of Trading Standards. Inclusion becomes deeper when people are valued for the full breadth of what they contribute rather than being disproportionately visible when organisations want to discuss diversity.
It also means examining the everyday architecture of opportunity: recruitment, progression, development programmes, sponsorship, speaker panels, communications, succession planning and leadership pipelines.
Most importantly, it requires organisations to become comfortable not simply with diverse faces but with diverse voices.
There is a subtle but important distinction between inviting somebody into an established space and allowing their presence to influence that space. Genuine inclusion cannot mean welcoming difference and then gradually requiring it to become indistinguishable from everything already there. Professional standards absolutely matter, but we should remain intellectually curious about where professional socialisation ends and unnecessary assimilation begins.
That requires listening, including when what we hear is uncomfortable.
James Baldwin captured something fundamental about the relationship between discomfort and meaningful change:
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” - James Baldwin
Black History Month should therefore be a lens, not a container: a period of heightened reflection within a commitment that exists throughout the other eleven months.
The measure of progress is not simply whether Black voices are amplified in October. It is whether those voices are heard, trusted, developed and influential throughout the year; whether talented people can enter our profession without feeling that progression requires them to leave important parts of themselves at the door; and whether inclusion ultimately changes not only who is present, but whose perspectives help shape the institution itself.
When you look at the next generation entering Trading Standards, what gives you hope for the profession's future?
What gives me hope is that I do not think the next generation is simply waiting to inherit the profession we leave them.
I think they will challenge it.
They are entering working life with different expectations around purpose, technology, communication, inclusion, flexibility and leadership. They are more willing to ask why organisations operate as they do, more comfortable communicating publicly and, in many cases, less accepting of the idea that longevity automatically confers authority or that established practice should remain unchallenged simply because it is established.
I see enormous opportunity in that.
At REACH, the apprentices were not simply evidence that our workforce pipeline is developing. They represented something potentially more consequential: new perspectives entering a profession that will need to adapt rapidly to new markets, new technologies, new forms of consumer harm and changing communities.
Our responsibility is not to create younger versions of ourselves.
It is to give the next generation the professional foundations, ethics, technical competence and confidence they need, then leave enough intellectual space for them to improve what we hand over.
That principle is captured neatly in Ralph Nader's observation:
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” - Ralph Nader
That is also why diversity matters so much to the future of Trading Standards. A profession protecting increasingly diverse communities and navigating increasingly complex markets benefits from people who bring different experiences, questions and ways of seeing problems.
After many years in public service, I have learned that legacy is not really about how much of yourself you leave behind. It is about how much possibility you create for other people.
When I look at the next generation, particularly the apprentices and young people I have encountered through REACH, I see intelligence, confidence, curiosity and an expectation that their work should have purpose.
My hope is not simply that they will find their place in Trading Standards. It is that, once they do, we will have the wisdom to let them help redefine what that place can become.
My Final Reflection
Perhaps there is one final question worth leaving with us…
As organisations become more sophisticated in how they seek diverse voices, lived experience and perspectives, we should also remain curious about where that diversity sits within the institution itself.
There is considerable value in inviting people to contribute ideas, share experiences, participate in panels, support campaigns and help organisations understand communities differently. Those contributions can enrich institutions enormously. However, inclusion reaches a different level when the people bringing those perspectives are not only invited into the conversation, but are also present within the structures that commission it, shape it, resource it and ultimately decide what happens next.
Otherwise, there is a risk that diversity becomes something an institution periodically draws upon rather than something embedded within its own capacity.
The long-term ambition should surely be to move beyond asking diverse people to help institutions think differently and towards creating institutions whose own breadth of experience means diverse thinking already exists at the heart of how they operate.
That is not about appointing people because of who they are, nor should it ever diminish the importance of merit, expertise or professional standards. It is about recognising that talent, insight and lived experience should have pathways into positions of responsibility, influence and decision-making, rather than remaining predominantly something organisations access from the outside.
Perhaps one measure of progress, therefore, is not simply whose voices we invite in, but who eventually holds the keys to open the door for somebody else.
The most mature expression of inclusion is not continually finding diverse voices to contribute to established institutions.
It is building institutions in which diversity is already part of who thinks, who shapes, who decides, who leads, and who opens the door next
Something to Say? If you'd like to share your story or experience - to inspire, empower or motivate others - then please let us know by emailing [email protected] (please include your full name, contact details and, ideally, your membership number, in your message).
