Type=image;ImageID=15472;ImageClass=left;ImageTitle=Touchstone Award;TitleClass=strong;
The award, sponsored by the UK's four Assay Offices, was presented to the City of Wolverhampton's Trading Standards team, at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute National Symposium on Tuesday 5 June.
The Trading Standards team won the award in recognition of its outstanding information and educational activity to prevent fraud in relation to gold, silver and other precious metals.
Trading Standards championed a proactive campaign to educate Wolverhampton residents and businesses about hallmarking and how to spot falsely described jewellery.
The team issued educational resource packs to jewellers across the city with detailed guidelines to remind jewellers of their legal obligation to hallmark valuable metals.
To educate consumers, the team also developed hallmarking activity packs which were distributed to schools, public libraries and places of worship.
Paul Dosanjh, Service Lead for Trading Standards at City of Wolverhampton Council said: "The UK's hallmarking system is one of the oldest consumer protection regimes in the world.
"As a council, we want to ensure gold sellers understand their legal responsibilities and consumers understand their rights when buying precious metals.
"It is a great honour in this area of Trading Standards to be recognised for our efforts by the judges and to be the Touchstone award winner for 2018."
The city council will retain the award for 1 year.
- released: Wednesday 6 June, 2018